


The Batter and the Pinto

by LinkWorshiper



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 146,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinkWorshiper/pseuds/LinkWorshiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas hitches a ride from a mouthy blond named Jimmy. It seems both of them are running away from something, though neither is eager to share. Until an unexpected adventure takes hold and keeps them from ever looking back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bazooka Joe

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the start of this an age ago and I'm posting it up because I keep promising Abby that it's coming, it's coming. I've been so busy lately, I don't know how regularly I can keep it up, especially with two other long WIPs happening on top of all my IRL stuff. But I hope this little tidbit is enjoyable anyway: I have big plans for this one.

****

Thomas was halfway through a full English breakfast the first time he laid eyes on Jimmy Kent.

It had been half ten in the morning at a roadside restaurant about an hour out of Sheffield. Alone at a table by the window, Thomas was one of four people sitting down to eat at the quaint establishment, which was almost painfully British in its décor, when the sudden roar of an angry engine outside was punctuated by the slamming of a car door. It had been about three days since Thomas had eaten a decent meal, and he almost didn't bother looking up from his plate but for the very aggressive voice that demanded attention from outside. He glanced through the window.

Its source was an young man in jeans and a collared button-down out in the restaurant's car park, screaming obscenities loudly enough that he could be heard inside. He was currently kicking the tail bumper of his ragged Ford Pinto with an ostentatiousness that forced the other diners to look away in embarrassment; Thomas, meanwhile, was transfixed, staring through the glass with a forgotten banger hanging off his fork.

It wasn't enough that the young man was stunningly handsome with his gently curling blond hair flopping over his face with each blow he dealt his uncooperative vehicle, or the deft athleticism that undulated through his toned frame as he did so. Something about him – a certain _aura_ of attitude and irreverence – seemed to radiate off him, blasting straight through the glass and into Thomas's world. There was an unpredictability to him that appealed to Thomas in his current state of limbo. He decided to take a risk, hurriedly dropping a few quid on the table to cover his costs before gathering his things. He didn't have much: just a worn, leather case and a cherry-stained cricket bat, which was sentimental.

He hoped he had shed any suggestion of nervousness at his bold audacity as he stepped outside and strode directly towards the blond and his Pinto, which was a rusty orange that might have once been green, and looked as if it was held together with about three rolls of duct tape and a prayer.

“American piece of shite,” the blond raged, nailing the car with his foot again just as Thomas drew near enough to be noticed. He stilled, shooting Thomas a wary glance as he asked, “Who the hell are you?”

“Thomas Barrow,” he introduced himself, gripping his cricket bat and suitcase handle more tightly in each hand, hoping to ground himself. “And you are?”

The blond looked him up and down with a pouty breed of suspicion, silently judging Thomas from his slick, black hair all the way down to his slick, black loafers. After coming to some private conclusion he did not feel the need to share, he deigned Thomas with his name: “Jimmy,” he said, his glare settling on the red cricket bat Thomas carried like it was the oddest thing a person could own. “Jimmy Kent.”

“Right you are, Jimmy,” said Thomas, feeling a little less awkward now that he at least had a name for the handsome stranger. He arched an eyebrow at Jimmy's wreck of a vehicle, which looked as though it had passed through a whole legacy of owners before it ever came to Jimmy. He said rather succinctly, “Looks like you're havin' a bit of car trouble, there.”

“You _think_?” Jimmy snapped in a way that was probably meant to be acerbic, but which Thomas found enticing.

“I do,” agreed Thomas with a smirk. He gave the Pinto another once-over, wondering if he could be of any help. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Petrol leak,” Jimmy groused, flattening the sole of one trainer against the tail bumper and leaning his weight into it. An insidious creak whined beneath the pressure. “It weren't so bad before, but now I might as well be bleedin' money at this point. It's like I can barely get it down the bloody road before I need to refill.” He gave the Pinto another unimpressed kick.

“That's not goin' to help fix it,” Thomas observed.

“Yeah,” grumbled Jimmy; “But it does a good job makin' me feel better.”

Thomas gave a small laugh to the patch of gravel between them, certainly empathetic to such a sentiment. “You chew gum?” he asked Jimmy, noting the Bazooka packet hanging out of Jimmy's breast pocket as set down his case. He knew he was being forward, and perhaps a little foolish, but there was a lurch of excitement in his stomach the longer he spent bantering with Jimmy. Who was he to refuse help when happenstance flung such a person right where he could trip over him?

Jimmy settled long enough to give Thomas a long, penetrating look. Hesitantly, he let out an uncertain, “Yeah? So?”

“You might want to try managin' your moods with a bit of that,” said Thomas as he laid his cricket bat against his case, careful to balance it so it wouldn't topple over. Then he squatted down behind the Pinto for a closer look at its low-riding gas tank, hoping the trouble was minute enough that his bag of tricks would be enough to at least get Jimmy back on his way. In his youth, Thomas's best friend had been the son of a mechanic, and he'd picked up a few things growing up with him. Thomas had, admittedly, spent most of his childhood hiding out at the Branson family garage, as he had not been particularly keen of his own father – and his father even less so of him.

Behind him, the telltale smack and pop of gum squished in Jimmy's mouth. He flicked his eyes back at Jimmy in time to see the blond pull a large, pink bubble back into his mouth with the curl of his tongue. Thomas's breath hitched, and he rolled his eyes away as he asked, “Let me have that.”

“Have what?” Jimmy asked as another rosy bubble snapped across his chin.

“The gum,” Thomas elaborated, and Jimmy started to reach for the Bazooka packet he'd replaced in his pocket. Thomas cleared his throat, clarifying, _“Your_ gum _.”_

Flabbergast filled Jimmy's expression as he clenched the wad of gum between his teeth, staring at Thomas as though he were quite mad. But Thomas remained deadly serious, and even held out his hand, waiting for Jimmy to deliver the chewed candy. Jimmy spat the gum out into its wrapper and passed it to Thomas, who made no qualms about using the sticky substance to stop up the tiny leak he'd found in the Pinto's petrol tank. Thomas worked efficiently, trying very hard not to think about Jimmy's saliva on his fingers, or how the gum had looked against Jimmy's pouting lips.

“There we are,” said Thomas, clapping his oily hands together as he considered where he might wash them off. “That should do well enough to get you wherever you're goin'.”

“Wouldn't be too sure,” Jimmy said, who had bent at the waist to inspect Thomas's ingeniously simple resolution to his car trouble. “Gotta get down to London, me.”

Settling for palming the grease off on the small handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, Thomas gave Jimmy an incredulous once over. “Are you?” he questioned with a lift to his eyebrows; “Because you seem to be headin' in a rather round-about way if that's so.”

Jimmy became indignant, puffing up as largely as he could. “Beautiful country, this,” he sniffed gruffly, rummaging through his pockets for his keys. “Can't a bloke take the time to appreciate it properly?”

The sudden spike in defense was intriguing to Thomas, who had started reeling with curiosities about the agitated young man. He had a certain inclination about Jimmy, though he knew it would be presumptuous to read too much into the blond's ambiguous behavior. Instead, he tucked his soiled handkerchief back into his pocket and retrieved his case and cricket bat, while Jimmy stalked towards the driver's side of the car – which, Thomas noted with droll amusement, was oriented for American roads. With almost rude abruptness and no attempt at a thank you, Jimmy wrenched the door open and climbed inside; Thomas stepped up to the Pinto's passenger side and leaned in through the open window with a crooked elbow upon the sill. It seemed that a busted AC was another mark on Jimmy's list of car woes.

“Well, since you seem to be in no particular rush,” Thomas drawled with an ease that masked the nervous way he was tapping his cricket bat against his shin; “D'ya think you might be goin' where I'm goin'?”

“I dunno,” grumbled Jimmy as he fumbled with his keys, awkwardly failing to insert the little fob into the ignition about four times before he finally managed. “Where you tryin' to get?”

There was a short pause as a series of possible responses flickered through Thomas's brain, all ranging from the ill truth to shameless lies. He barely caught the fluttering of his lips as he formed an answer, saying, “Same place as you.” He studied Jimmy for another brief moment, fixated on the way Jimmy was contemplatively palming the Pinto's gear shift. Thomas thought to add, “Wherever that is.”

“London,” Jimmy reminded him with a choked edge that might have been annoyance – or something else. The hand that wasn't engaged with the gear shift was flicking at the key ring dangling beneath the steering wheel, which jangled with sporadic measure, almost as if he was waiting.

Suddenly punched full of a bravery Thomas thought he'd forgotten in his youth, Thomas reached for the door handle and gave it a pull. Jimmy said nothing – barely even turned to look at Thomas – as Thomas settled into the seat with the creak of split leather. He tucked his case and cricket bat between his legs and dragged the Pinto's door shut, this time announcing the beginning of something new with another decisive slam. 

Wordlessly, Jimmy revved the engine back up to its full putter and pulled out of the car park without a second glance back.

 


	2. Avalanche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions lead to more questions as Thomas and Jimmy get to know one another.

 

As the countryside flew by, zooming through the ghostly reflection of Thomas's face in the half-rolled window, Thomas was twisted with impressions of his sudden shift in luck. A mere twenty-four hours ago, he had been riding in the back of a lorry with another bloke looking to get out of Manchester quickly – and had promptly screwed up his ticket by misinterpreting something his traveling companion had said, which had landed him on his backside in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his feet to carry him forward. He grimaced to think about it, depressed by the notion that his whole life seemed to be stuck in a wheel that turned over in the same routine of disappointment time and time again. He'd had a similar impression about the bloke on the lorry that he currently had about Jimmy, and it terrified him to consider yet another mistake that might find him right back where he started.

 _Besides_ , he thought, stealing his sixty-third secret peek at the blond driver; _This one's got somethin' about him. I'd rather at least make a friend than nothin' at all_.

He told himself that and forced himself to be satisfied with it.

Though they had only been on the road for about two hours, heading towards the coast for what Jimmy had defined as the very, _very_ scenic route, Thomas already felt like he'd learned a lot about his new acquaintance. A man of infinite moods, Jimmy went through bouts of loquaciousness and saturnine quiet, and drove like there was never enough distance between London and wherever he'd come from. He spoke with a husky Yorkshire accent that melted into a silky tenor when he sang snatches of song lyrics with the radio. The wallpaper image on his mobile, which lay on the console between the two front seats, was an enormous St. Bernard he called Pancake.

Jimmy’s phone was plugged into the cigarette breaker, reminding Thomas that he very much wanted a smoke. He abstained the urge, even as he palmed the nearly empty packet crumpled in his trouser pocket. He didn’t think twoish hours and sixty-four – sixty-five, sixty-six – surreptitious glances invited enough familiarity to ask whether he could make himself that comfortable, or if Jimmy even minded. Instead, he shifted in his seat with the whine of old springs beneath his thighs, though it was difficult to rearrange himself with his case and his bat stuffed in the space between his feet. He thought he might at least try making some headway by asking if he could at least put his things in the backseat.

“If you can find space,” Jimmy shrugged lackadaisically.

Thomas accepted that as permission and turned around to see what the situation was. In addition to an unzipped duffel bag, a few blankets and pillows, he was greeted with a large mass of brown and white fur he had initially thought was a tacky seat cover until he realized it was _breathing_. “Jimmy…” he started, still staring at the fuzzy shape, slowly matching a name to it: “Is that what I think it is?”

“’Course it is,” Jimmy replied with another shrug. “Pancake’s me best friend. I wouldn’t ever think of leavin’ him behind.”

“I s’pose I just assumed he’d be waiting for you in London,” Thomas led carefully, hoping to fish out another detail or two about Jimmy. He had yet to learn why Jimmy was so focused on his destination, yet so inconsequential about getting there in any sort of timely fashion.

“That’s what you get for assumin’ about me!” Jimmy quipped boldly, rolling his shoulders into the back of his seat like he was putting on airs. “London ain’t where I’m from. It’s just a place to get to.”

“I see,” said Thomas, who was still facing the sleeping St. Bernard in the back as if it might suddenly decrease in size to make just enough space for Thomas’s case. Instead, he found himself stuck on the underwear hanging out of the duffel bag, half-horrified with himself and half twisted over the fact that Jimmy had at least two pairs of boxers patterned with penguins in bowties. He thought about how those little shorts fit over Jimmy’s thighs and how tightly they might cling to his loins. About the time his eyes skated back to Jimmy’s legs in an effort to compare, Thomas internally slapped himself and reevaluated his hesitation in asking Jimmy if he could smoke in the car. The craving was making him go a little mad – or so he justified to himself.

“What's for _you_ in London anyway?” Jimmy suddenly asked. It was the first personal question he had bothered to launch at Thomas since they'd taken up together.

“Just a place to get to,” Thomas threw back at Jimmy instinctually. He faced forward and then took a few moments to consider his answer as a precaution, not sure that it was a good idea to go announcing his personal troubles to the world if he didn't need to. “Really, I'm tryin' to get to Oxford,” he eventually said, tracing the pommel of his cricket bat with anxious fingers. “An... old friend of mine is at university there and – and I thought I might look in on him.”

“You're friends with an Oxford man?” Jimmy snorted with an amused sort of incredulity. He took his eyes off the road long enough to give Thomas a quick visual appraisal, his eyes settling on the way Thomas's long, white fingers curled around the handle of the bat; “But I guess I wouldn't've thought you a cricketer neither – if I were just goin' on – uhhh – _impressions_.”

Anxious butterflies whirled with excited ones, sailing through his stomach on nervous wings that made his insides churn. “What's that mean?” Thomas asked warily, hoping he wasn't standing on the ledge of another mistake. He tried to think of something else, but was only able to generate parades of bowtied penguins on a field of orange.  

Jimmy hunched over the steering wheel with almost comical focus as he said nonchalantly, “Oh, nothin'. You just seem a bit rough for all that, I s'pose.” The Pinto wobbled with the shudder of Jimmy's unsteady hand, a consequence of driving a backwards car on the wrong side of the road. 

Thomas was oddly mollified by such an assessment.

“And you?” he wondered with a quick glance at Jimmy’s profile, which cut an angular nose and pert lips that curved into his round, boyish chin. Thomas could tell he would be done for whether he’d like it or not. He quickly swallowed, adding, “In London, that is. What’s for you in London? There has to be _some_ reason you’d want to go there.”

There were a few odd moments where Jimmy said nothing, and the babble of the radio seemed to roar even louder than the Pinto’s screaming engine. Thomas tried not to focus on it, but it was hard to ignore when it spoke through such a murderous silence. He gripped the handle of his cricket bat a bit more tightly and hardly dared breathe as he waited. The disembodied voice on the stereo reminded its listeners that police were still investigating an assault in the northwest corner of the country.

“It’s me dad,” said Jimmy at length, his voice an unexpected relief to Thomas, whose palms had started to grow clammy around the bat’s handle. “My mum don’t like that I’d want to have anythin’ to do with him, but she’s not much help, and I –“ Jimmy sucked in an abrupt mouthful of air, like he’d suddenly realized that he was talking more than he’d intended to and needed to muzzle himself. The following comment he made sounded almost like it had been siphoned from another conversation altogether: “Besides, I needed an excuse to get meself outta town. Somethin’ troublesome in the air, I guess. I quite fancied the idea of a trip, just me an’ Pancake.”

“And which town is that?” Thomas asked, knowing full well that he was probably getting a bit nosy. But he could barely stop himself, even when he attempted to quietly test anything he had to say in the confines of his skull first. _Idiot_ , Thomas berated himself once it was too late to take the question back; _Stop behavin’ like a schoolboy at lessons, Barrow – for God’s sake_.

“Out round Thirsk,” Jimmy eventually said. “Nowhere, really.”

Thomas took a moment to consider, unsure if Jimmy was being metaphysical or not. Fearful he might get caught staring, he realigned his attention to the keys clinking in the ignition, just beneath the wheel: a latchkey and an elephant keychain swung on the ring, jangling with each sputter the Pinto made. The radio continued to detail its gratuitous news story, but the sound had muted to a dull drone buzzing in Thomas’s ears. All he could think about was what nowhere was like – and why two people isolated in the same sort of limbo had never run into each other before.

“Nowhere must be quite a large place,” Thomas assessed succinctly as his gaze wandered across the Pinto’s console again, over the broken AC vents and the sputtering radio. Then, just as he was considering whether or not it would be presumptuous to ask Jimmy for a bit of gum to chew on in lieu of a smoke, the sudden buzzing of the mobile phone interrupted his thoughts, replacing Pancake with an incoming call from someone named Ivy. A ringtone version of ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ argued with the radio for dominance.

“Not large enough, apparently,” grumbled Jimmy, who had taken his eyes off the road to silence his mobile. The Pinto swerved over the center line and Thomas latched a hand down onto the door’s armrest until the whine of a passing car horn alerted Jimmy’s attention back on the wheel. He was still hammering at his phone with one hand, glancing down at it sparingly as he swerved back to the left. He seemed to be composing a text. Somehow, Pancake slept through the crisis peacefully.

“Who’s Ivy?” asked Thomas instead of offering to help. The sensation in his stomach was that of dread.

“Nobody,” Jimmy replied, though he was still more occupied with texting than driving. The Pinto started to veer to the right again.

Thomas hated the trepidation that shone through as he attempted to clarify: “Your girlfriend?” He practically wanted to slap the obviousness out of his tone the moment he’d said the words.

“A friend that’s a girl? Yeah – somethin’ like that,” answered Jimmy, though he didn’t seem to be paying much attention as he tossed the phone back in its place above the gear shift. “S’pose it depends who you ask, really.”

Again, Thomas found himself overanalyzing Jimmy’s tendency for vagueness. He took a shot in the dark: “Her, then.”

“Girlfriend,” Jimmy said as his phone beeped with the arrival of a text reply.

With a dry swallow, Thomas took to holding his cricket bat for stability, asking, “And you?”

“I dunno,” Jimmy shrugged as his eyes danced back down towards his phone. “We’re on the outs.”

“Why’s that?” Thomas inquired, somehow desperate that this information be revealed to him as soon as humanly possible.

“’Cause I don’t fancy her as much as she’d like? ‘Cause she thinks I’m a fuckin’ pisspot? I told you – I _dunno_!” Jimmy snapped, suddenly flipping to a darker mood without much preamble. It seemed Thomas had stroked a nerve, because the blond then added tersely, “Can we talk about somethin’ else, eh? Like you, maybe?” He was glaring pointedly at Thomas’s cricket bat, perhaps because it was unique in its red lacquer, or perhaps so he could avoid looking Thomas in the eye out of some unidentified nervousness. Thomas willfully chose to believe the latter.

Another streaking car horn rudely reminded Jimmy that he was drifting across the motorway yet again. Thomas instinctively threw his hand across the car to grab the wheel and push it back towards the proper lane. “Only if you’ll watch the road – good _God_!” he exclaimed with a racing heart, though it wasn’t until he’d taken his hand back and the warmth of Jimmy’s knuckles remained imprinted on his palm that he realized why. The jolt seemed to have magnetized right from his fingers to his brain, sending his every thought and instinct into a whirl he thought he’d long grown out of.

“Oy, oy! My car, my rules,” Jimmy groused, though his previous agitation was noticeably dissipating. “Don’t like it, get out, mum.”

Thomas chuckled wryly at Jimmy’s exuberance. “Don’t think I’m _quite_ old enough for that,” he joked with another sideways glance at Jimmy, fairly certain there had to be at least six or so years between them. He was quickly caught out, quick to realize that Jimmy’s gaze had meandered from the road once more, and that his eyes were a very astonishing shade of blue.

“Old enough to be a mysterious stranger thumbin’ it out of Manchester, though,” Jimmy commented as he thankfully returned his attention to the road. “What’s your number, anyway? You got a family up there or somethin’?”

The directness of the question was rather alarming to Thomas, and the hand not gripping the cricket bat went instinctively to the silver chain around his neck, upon which dangled a little cross he kept tucked under his shirt. “No,” he said measuredly. “No family. Just me.”

He could feel Jimmy casting him a significant side stare, which smoldered against the side of his face. Despite another spike in concern about Jimmy’s focus on driving, Thomas chose to pretend like he hadn’t noticed. A new silence settled between them, through which the radio wobbled in and out of reception, crackling a tune that ran circles around his head. Jimmy blithely sang along, drumming his palms against the wheel as he pushed the engine up to 150km. 

 _“You got a look in your eyes –  
__I knew you in a past li-ife!_ ”

The surge of speed thrummed through Thomas with enough fervor to dull the frazzled need he had for a cigarette. Transfixed by the sudden onset of joy that was swirling around Jimmy as he drove, he even began to forget his worries, feeling – for the first time in a long while – that he could simply enjoy a singular moment without having to plot out the next before it was through.

  _“One glance and the avalanche  
__Drops!”_

Clearly a fan of the song, Jimmy was even bobbing his head with the happy rhythm, a sight Thomas couldn’t tear himself from no matter how hard he tried to will himself to. A smile even began to bloom on his lips – a delicate blossom whose sweetness made Thomas feel a tone of humanity he hadn’t experienced in a long while. A hardened heart could serve as efficient armor, Thomas had learned, but Thomas’s had petrified so fully, he’d been sinking. 

 _“One look and my heartbeat  
__Stops!”_   

As he sang that last line, Thomas realized Jimmy was grinning at him with that infectious bounce in his shoulders as the song broke down. 

 _“Ships pass in the night. Oooh-ah!  
_ _I don’t wanna wait ‘til the next life!“_

Thomas’s feet were buoyant, even with the weight of his case on his shoes. The air had been stoppered in his throat, a victim to every word that Jimmy unwittingly cast upon him with his singing. He could only stare and hope that he’d be able to catch his heart if it tried to rocket out of its cage. He’d never been so quickly smitten with anyone in his life, and yet all he was cognizant of was the excitement swinging his heart round on a wire – of the shape his lips formed around each syllable. There was a tantalizing dip at the corner of his mouth that made Thomas feel almost wicked for how beautiful it made the contour.

And Jimmy, who seemed fully aware that he was being scrutinized, only laughed and sang the song’s last line with a cheeky smile. 

 _“One look and my heartbeat  
_ _STOPS!”_

Then, as another, less interesting song faded onto the airwaves, Jimmy settled down and dropped an arm out through the open window, continuing to speed along the motorway as if nothing had happened at all. 

But it wasn’t so. To Thomas, who was still fighting to catch his breath, he felt as though he’d just been shown the entire universe in one, tiny microcosm that was too unfathomable for him to ever grab hold of or comprehend. He supposed he might try and relax with a quick nap as he sank back in his seat, though all he could see kicking up from the road were flurries of stars that scattered across the windscreen and rained down into his dreams as he closed his eyes.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this in a much more casual fashion than In the Fade, so I can pump it out better. It's not really been properly edited, so I'm sorry for any mistakes you might have caught. I hope you guys are enjoying this silly thing anyway. Oooohhh, intrigue. 
> 
> The song Jimmy sings at the end is by Walk the Moon, called Avalanche.


	3. Skate or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas phones a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really edited, but hopefully it's okay.

 

Thomas didn’t get a chance to have a cigarette until Jimmy pulled off the motorway to let Pancake out for a run and refuel the Pinto. They were at a Texaco with a convenience store, which Thomas took the opportunity to peruse while he waited. Somewhere between wondering how there were so _many_ flavors of crisps, and just why a petrol station needed to be in the business of selling toilet cleaner, Thomas noticed a pay phone lurking in the corner of the little market. He didn’t have a mobile, as his was still lying on the hall bureau in his father’s Manchester home – a casualty of the dramatic exit he’d made just before storming out of town in a great hurry. He supposed it might be prudent to check in on things while he had the chance.

Amazed the phone actually had a dial tone, Thomas dropped 50p into the slot and angled himself away from the register, where the bored attendant was watching him with unnecessary focus. There were two rings, both through which Thomas worried his call would go unanswered, until an Irish voice interrupted the third with a curious, “Hello?” An unexpected smile lifted the corners of Thomas’s mouth at the familiarity of it, and he breathed a sigh of relief he’d been holding in since he’d left Manchester. 

“It’s me,” said Thomas by way of introduction.

“Christ, Thomas, is it really you?” came the incredulous response. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Tom,” Thomas said blandly. In truth, fine was a relative term, but Tom never had to know that. “I wanted to ring and let you know that I was, anyway. I figured if anyone were missin’ me, it would at least be you.”

“Where _are_ you?” Tom demanded almost as if he hadn’t heard. “The whole bloody _street’s_ wonderin’ what happened to you. It’s been almost three days gone.”

“Funny, that. They never minded a thing about me before,” Thomas spat as he picked at a gummy sticker plastered on the wall beside the phone. He peeled at it until it was even less legible than before, now reading “—r die” instead of its original slogan. “I had to get out of there, Tom. I couldn’t take him for another minute.”

“I know, I know,” came Tom’s almost exasperated tone, and Thomas imagined him squinting his eyes as he angled his nose towards the sky or the ceiling or God or – _whatever_. Best friends since childhood they might have been, but even Tom Branson could find Thomas’s prickly personality a little difficult to keep patience with. A soft clicking, like a tongue against the back of teeth, sounded from Tom’s end of the line, and then a low murmur: “But you do… _know_ , right? What happened after you left?”

“I listen to the news, too, Tom,” Thomas deadpanned. “I have a _very_ good grasp of the situation.”

“Yeah, well, then you’ll know how doin’ a runner just now probably _looks_ , right?” Tom said in a desperate attempt to bring Thomas back to reason. “The street’s talkin’ about it. It ain’t good.”

“So I should just pop right back round the corner is it? Tip me hat and make it better?” Thomas wondered glibly. “Listen, he only got what were comin’, he did. I ain’t sorry about it. Not a single bit. We’re all much better off this way, believe me.”

“Really,” said Tom, who was less than convinced. “Tell me then, if you’re so clever – just what’re you goin’ to do now? Run right off the coast and into the Channel? Let me know how France is will you?”

“I just might do,” Thomas couldn’t help but retort, his penchant for sarcasm almost a natural inclination after twenty-nine years of life. He cooled down immediately, hating himself almost instantly for the rudeness he’d just handed the one person who actually care where he’d gone off to, and tried again. “If you must know, I thought I’d see Philip,” Thomas admitted quietly, speaking as though the floor had ears or that anyone in a ten-mile radius would care a whit about anything he had to say.

There was a long pause from Tom that spoke volumes more than any verbal response might have. Still, Thomas winced when Tom asked, “Are you sure that’s really such a good idea?”

“It’s not, actually,” Thomas surmised plainly. “But I’m not about to sit around, twiddlin’ me thumbs and waitin’ for the wrong people to put two an’ two together. It’s a mess as it is, and I dunno – I thought Philip might know–”

But just as he was about to go into his reasoning for the decision, he was interrupted by the angry jangle of the bell hanging over the market’s door. Twisting his neck so that he could peer behind him and over the tops of the candy-coated shelving that stood in between, he was unsurprised to find that the mini-mart’s new visitor was none other than his odd new chauffeur. Thomas was bowled over by a silent panic, already sure he’d risked enough in calling Tom: he quickly switched the tone of the conversation – and not a moment too soon, for Jimmy was zigzagging through the store on his way to Thomas, pausing only now and then when something on the shelves distracted him.

“So if gum doesn’t hold out on a leaking petrol tank, what do you suggest I try next?” Thomas asked, all the while eyeing Jimmy, who, in turn, was eyeing a row of chocolate bars.

Tom was confused, not at all sure what was happening on Thomas’s end of the line. There was concern in his voice as he answered Thomas’s unprecedented question, suddenly more worried than he’d been even moments before. “You’d want to get it properly looked at soon, but you might try rubbing it down with a bar of soap. It’ll coagulate over the puncture well enough – unless it rains, that is.” There was a momentary pause, and then Tom asked, “Is it rainin’ where you are?”  

It wasn’t, but Thomas glanced outside anyway, where the moody English sky brooded with a thick covering of gray clouds. He wondered if he should tell Tom, but then shied away from the temptation. He had wanted Tom to know he was alive, but not much else. Instead, he said, “I don’t want anyone to think you knew what I were goin’ to do before I did it.” He glanced over at Jimmy, who had lost interest in the chocolate and was now heading directly for him. “Thanks for the tip about the soap,” Thomas added before abruptly hanging up the phone. The clang of his 50p dropping into the payphone’s mechanism punctuated the end of the call.

“Girlfriend worried about you?” Jimmy asked as he meandered up to Thomas. He nodded at the payphone, whose cord was still swinging beneath the hook.

Thomas pursed his lips, unsure what to say. A hot reminder of the man who’d shoved him into a roadside ditch before he’d encountered Jimmy flashed through his memory, filling Thomas with an anxiety about himself that was hard to suppress. It was bad enough that he was having difficulty getting a bead on Jimmy – whether he’d find riding with a gay man problematic or not; it was worse that he was having difficulty quieting his unbidden attraction to the blond, which had blindsided him hard and fast. Jimmy was handsome and cheeky and irreverent, which only made him more perfect to Thomas. The only question Thomas had left was whether or not Jimmy was the sort to want a boyfriend – and whether or not Thomas really wanted to know if the answer was no. It was bad enough Thomas had the tendency to fall in love every time a man like Jimmy tripped into his path.

So Thomas decided to err on the side of caution, desperate to keep Jimmy as close to him as possible, even if it meant just as a companion. “Somethin’ like that,” he said vaguely.

“Yeah?” Jimmy arched an eyebrow, a corner of his mouth quirked with mischief. “What’s her name?”

A hundred names flitted through Thomas’s head, some of which were even sort of close to Tom’s, but he knew there was a danger in making a lie too complicated. He merely shrugged in response.

Jimmy snorted with a devilish grin. “Heh, I know how that is, mate,” he sniggered. Then he brazenly punched Thomas’s shoulder and said, “Didn’t think you’d be such a git. Good job.” Then he wandered off, probably expecting Thomas to follow on his heels.

Thomas had to shake himself back to reality, too numbed by the sensation that had exploded from the place where Jimmy’s knuckles had connected with his body. There was something about the way Jimmy had complimented him in such a backwards way that left Thomas even more flustered and turned around than he’d been before. It seemed Jimmy had his own code for acceptable behavior, and Thomas loved the irreverence of it. It suited Thomas’s own sensibilities, and it was then that Thomas realized that it had been quite some time since he’d had such a pleased smile on his face.

Quickly, he stepped after Jimmy, but not before spending a few precious quid on a new pack of cigarettes and a bar of Ivory soap for the road. He abstained from the desire to purchase a bottled tea, which he decided he didn’t need enough to justify the £1,50.

Outside, Jimmy was chasing Pancake in the general direction of the car, a sight which only prolonged the smile fixed on Thomas’s face. The St. Bernard was nearly as tall as Jimmy’s waist, a size which was made particularly noticeable by the fact that Jimmy was on the short side. There was something unguarded about Jimmy’s behavior around the animal that Thomas liked, and he briefly flirted with the idea of getting Jimmy to be like that around him in any way he could – even if it took falling to Jimmy’s feet like a dog. Watching Jimmy pounce on Pancake to wrestle him into a patch of roadside bramble only made the desire more pronounced. He lit the last cigarette in his old packet and meandered towards the pair.

As he neared the Pinto, Jimmy sat up, smeared in grass stains and hilariously dwarfed by Pancake, who was in the process of slobbering affectionately onto Jimmy’s cheek. The dirty impulse that entered Thomas’s head at the image was shameless enough that he didn’t bother trying to tell himself to stop, and he allowed the thought of running his tongue down the side of Jimmy’s face to occupy his mind without reservation. But while Jimmy remained oblivious to such things, Pancake seemed to possess a certain breed of intuition that escaped most humans: he immediately abandoned Jimmy to run at Thomas, barking angrily. Thomas shrunk back as Pancake neared, suddenly alarmed that he was going to be run down by the giant animal.  

“Don’t worry, big boy. He’s with us,” Jimmy called after his pet, though the assurance didn’t seem to do much for Pancake’s opinion of Thomas. The dog continued to bark aggressively at Thomas, which only increased in intensity when Thomas remained exactly where he was. Jimmy jogged after the dog and bent over to wrap his arms around Pancake’s neck, smothering his nose into the fur behind Pancake’s head; “Come on, be a good boy, Pancake. That’s Thomas. He won’t hurt us.”

Pancake reduced his barking to a low growl, clearly not convinced by even Jimmy’s soothing.

“He’s just got to get used to you, that’s all,” Jimmy said to Thomas, still hugging Pancake in a way that made Thomas irrationally jealous. “Prob’ly a bit weird for him, wakin’ up and findin’ someone new all of the sudden, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” Thomas repeated blankly, already sensing that Pancake was going to prove himself as an unexpected obstacle for Jimmy’s attention. He puffed nervously at his cigarette, relieved he at least could take solace in that, as this conversation had suddenly taken a direction he hadn’t anticipated. He was, admittedly, not much of a dog person, but he had a feeling Pancake was more discerning than just that. In a strange way, Thomas was relieved that dogs didn’t talk the same way humans did: he’d be left thumbing it out of that Texaco station if they could.

“He probably just smells somethin’ on you. He’ll get over it,” Jimmy said, glancing at Thomas’s cigarette, though he didn’t draw any more specific attention to it than that. He ruffled Pancake’s ears and made a sort of humming growl as he did so; “He’s normally very easygoing, isn’t he?” About halfway through the sentence, Jimmy seemed to have switched from addressing Thomas to addressing the dog. The pleasured sound Pancake made was rather similar to the one Jimmy was making, which Thomas might have been amused by if he wasn’t so sure that Pancake was trying to rub his face in it. He gave the dog an unfazed glare when Jimmy wasn’t looking.  

“Oh, don’t look so severe about it,” Jimmy laughed as he stood up and beat the dirt from his clothing with a flapping hand, completely mindless of the way Thomas was watching as he smacked the grime off the seat of his pants. “Pancake even likes Ivy. Which – as far as I’m concerned – means he’ll take to anybody.”

At the mention of the infamous Ivy, Thomas almost choked on a lungful of smoke. He desperately wanted to probe Jimmy for more details about what the girl meant to him, but it seemed like a dangerous thing to ask. Instead, he dropped his cigarette end and stamped it out beneath one of his loafers, taking out his frustration about the question by grinding the filter into the tarmac with unnecessary ardor.

Oblivious to Thomas’s internal monologue, Jimmy took the action as a sign that it was time to get moving. He unlocked the Pinto and put down one of the seats so Pancake could hop into the back. Thomas took the opportunity to try cramming his case into the limited space, very aware of the way Pancake was watching him do so. “Sorry,” Thomas said despite not feeling particularly apologetic. He elected to keep his cricket bat up front with him, not sure he trusted Pancake to not chew it out of spite.

Once Pancake was settled, Thomas and Jimmy climbed into the rickety little car. The engine sputtered and whined as Jimmy revved the ignition, and the radio assaulted them with music that had been left on full blast when Jimmy had first parked. “Let’s see if we can make it to the beach,” Jimmy suddenly decided as he dropped a foot onto the clutch and shifted into first gear. The idea seemed to have come to him as arbitrarily as a stray whiff of sea breeze from the distant coastline. He glanced over at Thomas, grinning, “You still goin’ to be my mechanic if this piece of crap decides to quit on us?”

“Roger, cap’n,” Thomas said in all seriousness, more concerned with the prospect of what it would be like to chase Jimmy through the surf. He was starting to ease into the idea that there was no need to rush anywhere, especially after Tom had so blithely reminded him that his plan to visit Philip in Oxford probably wasn’t a very good one. Jimmy was right, after all: England was a _lovely_ country.

He wondered how Jimmy felt about Wales. Seemed like as good a time as any to find out.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a reference to the punk song by Teenage Bottlerocket. 
> 
> Hope you guys are still enjoying this. It's not edited really but it's been fun to just push something out that's not very serious. In the Fade might have to sit on a shelf for a moment; my life is so stressful, this is a lot easier to get done. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	4. Earth Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy stop over at a Welsh beach.

 

 

Jimmy stuck to the A493 until he found a sign pointing out a town with a fabulously unpronounceable Welsh name and a pier. Thomas had been to Wales a grand total of once in his life, when he was a very small boy, to visit an estranged aunt whose premier quality was the smell of damp and a proclivity towards the color yellow. This venture into the province was a wholly different experience, filled mostly with the fresh scent of the ocean, and where the only yellow for miles was the lovely tones streaking through Jimmy’s hair as the sun danced through the windscreen. Cruising at about 100kmph, Jimmy was wearing a pair of large aviator shades and was riding low in his seat, an arm hanging through the rolled down window as he beat out the rhythm of every song that happened across the airwaves. Thomas had lost count how many times he’d snuck glances at the handsome young man by that point, but he loved watching Jimmy’s long fingers slide round the gear shift every time he took a precarious downhill curve.

All the while, Pancake was monitoring Thomas with a much more scrupulous eye, and made it no secret that he was less than pleased by the disruption Thomas had caused with his very presence. Thomas, whose main experience with pets was the stray tuxedo cat that lived behind Tom’s garage, hadn’t been aware that animals were even capable of such palpable disdain, but he was learning quickly. He could feel Pancake’s scrutiny like a slap across the face every time he glanced Jimmy’s direction, and had been interrupted by shameless barking a number of times he attempted to interact with the blond. Jimmy, on the other hand, seemed to find Pancake incapable of any evil and assumed every time that the St. Bernard caused a disruption, it was because he had some need for a run, or a snack, a belly rub or any other number of things that required pulling over. Under other circumstances, Thomas wouldn’t have minded the inefficiency so much, but it was becoming evident that Pancake was direct competition for Jimmy’s attention, and that simply wouldn’t do – which Pancake seemed more than aware of. Jimmy, meanwhile, drove on, oblivious to the war for his affection that was broiling in the back of his car.

Summer was just about over, which found the beachside town at the bottom of the Welsh cliffs fairly deserted. Jimmy coasted through the town center and had no trouble finding a parking space close to the promenade, which proudly overlooked a rather picturesque beach. The sun was low, heavy with pinks and teals that dotted the sea and steeped into the shore; the nearby pier twinkled with hundreds of illuminated bulbs that stood out as golden stars in the pale twilight. Jimmy had barely turned off the Pinto’s engine before he was kicking the door open and dashing towards the railway on the prom, wind whipping through his blond curls as he pushed his aviators over his forehead to get a better view. Thomas got out of the car at a much more leisurely pace, though he found the time to shoot Pancake a particularly triumphant smirk as he climbed out of the vehicle.

“Are we goin’ to – ah – bunk up here for the night?” Thomas casually asked as he leaned on the promenade’s railing. He almost asked if they were going to ‘spend the night,’ but the phrase sounded too suggestive to him. Which then led to the question of what exactly their sleeping situation was going to be – if they were going to share a room of some kind, or if they were going to just camp out in the Pinto. Both prospects presented Thomas with a number of potential frustrations.

“Why not? Here’s as good as any,” Jimmy shrugged as he continued to survey the landscape. The lull of the crashing waves on the beach wafted softly through the salty air. “And I kind of like the look of it, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed, though his eyes weren’t on the shore. Instead, he was transfixed by the cut of Jimmy’s profile against the airglow cast by the streetlamps that lined the promenade. The whites of Jimmy’s eyes were bright beneath his heavy eyelids, like they’d caught the glow of the emerging moon overhead. There was something unspoken and serene about the mood it brought out in Jimmy’s entire demeanor, which Thomas found stirring. It incinerated his heart and his head with careless abandon, like he was falling in love again and again with every pulsation that shivered through his veins.

The moment was shattered by the distant sound of Pancake’s barking. The giant dog had climbed into the passenger seat of the Pinto and had poked his head through the open window to make a fuss. Irrationally concerned about his prized cricket bat, Thomas sucked in a sharp mouthful of oxygen to steady himself and started to walk back towards the car, his hands automatically groping through his pockets for his cigarettes as he did so. The bat was an odd sort of trophy in Thomas’s exodus from his father’s house, and he prized it as a sort of spiteful indication of freedom and victory. After everything he’d been through in the last three days, he would be damned if a stupid dog would be the thing that got to it in the end.

Jimmy beat Thomas to the car, once again overly concerned about Pancake’s wellbeing. He wrenched open the door to let the St. Bernard lope out onto the pavement with a creak that shuddered through the whole vehicle at the lost weight. Pancake skipped happily in circles around Jimmy, who pivoted on his heels in the opposite direction with excited hands that taunted Pancake into a series of leaps and bounds. “Who’s daddy’s big boy, ey?” Jimmy teased Pancake, who woofed his assent. “Does big boy want to play in the sand with daddy? Does he?” He had bent over to slap his knees enthusiastically.

Pancake woofed again, and Thomas realized that the level of jealousy he felt towards the animal was almost obscene. Thomas decided then and there he was going to win Jimmy any way he could. He didn’t care the cost.  

“Ah, he does, he doesn’t he,” Jimmy gushed, still unaware of his effect on Thomas’s state of being. He stood up, fishing into his shirt pocket for his packet of gum, a wad of which he unwrapped as he announced to Thomas, “I’m just goin’ to take Pancake for a proper stretch. Maybe you could try and find somewhere for us to spend the night while we go down there.” He tossed his head in the direction of the water as he popped the Bazooka into his mouth and started chewing – an action which made Thomas’s thoughts turn rude.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like a bit of a stretch myself,” Thomas said, glaring at Pancake as he slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit up. “What’s our rush? This town’s dead – likely not much competition to be had at this time of year.”

“Ahh, you’re prob’ly right about that,” Jimmy laughed before blowing a gum bubble that exploded over his nose after it had grown to a rather impressive size. “Let’s get a move on, then. We’re wasting light.”

Pancake led their march down to the beach, rolling happily through the sand the moment his paws left the promenade. Then he jumped upright and ran another few feet only to repeat the process. Jimmy dashed after him, kicking a cloud in his wake as he dove into sand with the same gusto as his dog. Thomas took the time to remove his loafers and socks, and to roll the cuffs of his trousers up to his knees before alighting the beach. He followed at a much more leisurely pace as he smoked in silence and watched. He had to admit there was something very carnal and beautiful about the sight of man and beast tearing through the night with very little difference between them – a pair married to the earth as they howled at the sky together. It seemed like the sort of thing Jimmy lived for – a world without rules or permissions.

Jimmy grappled with Pancake halfway between the surf and the promenade, allowing Thomas to catch up with them in the looming darkness. The exercise seemed just as much of a work-out for Jimmy as it was for Pancake, though it certainly gave Thomas an appreciation for how well-cut Jimmy’s musculature was. It was almost unfair, especially as Thomas’s active imagination replaced Pancake with his own person – volunteering a very appealing scenario in which Thomas was the one wrestling Jimmy across the sand, pinning him to the ground and adoring him with wet, wet kisses.

Thomas decided to stop torturing himself and ripped himself away from Jimmy and Pancake’s roughhousing to splash his feet through the water, suddenly desperate for the refreshment. His cigarette dangled from his lips and his shoes from his fingertips as he padded across the soaked sand and into the glassy foam sliding back into the ocean. The ritual of having a smoke and the repetition of the breakers berating the sand over and over brought a certain calm to Thomas – one he hadn’t experienced in a very, very long time. The lapping water buried Thomas’s toes beneath the sand, and sucked him down to the jutting bones of his ankles. A selection of faded stars began to wink through the encroaching twilight.

An unexpected sloshing came from Thomas’s left, and he glanced over in time to see Pancake come bounding through the peaceful tide. It was with a sudden rush of horror that he realized Pancake was veering straight for him, almost as if he wanted to herd Thomas out into the ocean, never to return. He seemed determined to make sure that Thomas’s time with Jimmy was temporary, and that it would reach its end as soon as possible, barking aggressively as he neared.

Thomas pulled his feet out of the sand to back away, admittedly a bit intimidated by Pancake’s sheer size as he came hurtling at him. But when Pancake suddenly pounced at him, there was a momentary indictment of pure panic that caused Thomas to drop his shoes as he narrowly dodged the weight of the oncoming dog. He stumbled backwards into a rising breaker, which slapped the cigarette out of his mouth and drenched him from head to toe before dragging him onto his knees. Pancake plopped down and howled in a tone that Thomas interpreted as smug, thumping his tail against the thinning water in triumph. Thomas glowered at the dog as he floundered after his loafers, which were in danger of being carried out to sea on the receding wave.

“Pancake, no!” came Jimmy’s reprimand just moments too late. His trainers sunk heavily into the smooth sand as he ran into the waves after his St. Bernard, mindless of the water as it soaked them through and splashed up over the cuffs of his jeans. “Sorry. He can be a bit stupidly protective,” he apologized to Thomas as he tried to help Thomas recapture his swimming shoes.

“I s’pose I can appreciate the loyalty,” Thomas deadpanned, managing to grab his left loafer just as another wave attempted to ferry it into the briny deep. A remote part of him wished anyone would show _him_ that level of dedication – even just once in his life.

“Maybe you should’ve brought that bat of yours down. Pancake’d love you forever if you hit a few balls for him,” Jimmy said as he attempted to grab Thomas’s right shoe. He managed to get a hand on it, but not without being knocked over by the next oncoming wave. He fell face-first into the water in a flurry of limbs and sputtering water.

But he saved the shoe – and that seemed to be enough to please him, even as he sat up in the ebbing water in sodden clothing that now stuck to him in the most tantalizing of places. His thick, golden curls dripped, and he’d lost his aviators in exchange for rescuing Thomas’s loafer, but the victorious smile on his face charmed Thomas enough to almost forgive Pancake for the trouble. _Almost_.

“Here,” he said proudly, offering the shoe back to Thomas. He flopped back into the sand once Thomas reclaimed his footwear, lying spread-eagled in the wet sand with the surf washing around him in salty rivulets as the sea continued on its endless cycle. He was breathing heavily, but there was a level of relaxation about him that made Thomas want to emulate. He flattened himself beside Jimmy, clasping his shoes to his chest beneath conservatively folded hands as he stared up at the blackening sky. On the edge of the world as they were, the heavens were punched through with more stars than Thomas had ever seen in his whole life. It took his breath away.

“Are you very good at cricket?” Jimmy eventually asked after a few moments that were filled only with the cry of gulls and rushing water.

The question was almost out of nowhere, except for the fact that Thomas was still thinking about Jimmy’s suggestion for winning Pancake’s favor – and whether or not he really wanted it. But then he started thinking about cricket itself and all the mixed emotions the game brought up for him. Another baptismal wave slid around their forms, and, in a rush of vulnerability, Thomas mumbled, “Yeah. I rather am.”

“Not much for cricket, me,” Jimmy said, blowing another bubble with the gum that somehow managed to survive his battle against the sea. “I’m more of a footballer meself.”

“I like a bit of football as well,” Thomas replied, though he wasn’t sure there was a single Englishman alive who wouldn’t say the same. One more wave came and went, and he then surprised himself by elaborating: “I like most sport, if I’m honest. S’pose you could say it’s the one thing I’m good for.”

Thomas could feel Jimmy’s moony eyes on him, even in the increasing night. Jimmy said softly, “I’m sure you’re good for more than just that.”

The notes to his candor were deceptively warm, and Thomas thrilled at it in an almost abstract, whimsical way. It must have been something about the openness of the sea and the salty air that cast such a spell upon him, powerful enough so that the only life he wanted was the one he had right then at that very moment. There was nothing he desired except for the freedom in wandering, and the comfort in being with someone who had been blown out of the same stardust as he. And yet, Jimmy remained unaware of the way the pearls of water scattered in his hair and across his cheeks made him shine like a fallen constellation, or the way the ocean seemed to hum the song ‘Earth Angel’ to Thomas as he lay there beside him. The very sight of Jimmy was like a stolen secret – one that had tilted Thomas’s entire world. But then Pancake started whining, and the instance was gone, dragged back out to sea with the flotsam. 

At once, Jimmy was rolling over onto his belly and pushing himself back onto his feet. He jogged over to his dog in his squelching trainers, unbuttoning his drenched shirt as he moved. Thomas missed the display, pinned to the sand by the weight of the universe above him, and didn’t get up to follow Jimmy until a full minute had passed, and Jimmy was calling his name on a loop. He trod lightly across the beach with toes that didn’t seem to ever quite touch the sand, and floated after Jimmy as he headed back for the promenade. Pancake danced playfully at his ankles with happy yips, conjuring a smile to Jimmy’s lips that shone even more brightly than the sparkling pier above. Jimmy balled up his shirt and lobbed it forward for Pancake, who chased after it and returned it to his master with exuberance, while Thomas silently observed the flex of Jimmy’s perfect torso as he repeated the action numerous times for the playful dog.

They returned to the Pinto to retrieve their overnight things before heading out in search of a place to sleep. The colorful undergarments popping out of Jimmy’s duffel streamed after him like banners in the night as he passed in and out of the town’s yellowed lampglow, vexed by his mobile phone in one hand. Over his other shoulder, he carried a second bag full of things for Pancake, which was funny in that the dog had nearly as much stuff as Jimmy. Thomas trailed behind with just his case and his cricket bat, feeling rather Spartan in comparison.

As they wandered through the abandoned streets, the distinct smell of a late-night chippy beckoned. “Hungry?” Jimmy asked, abruptly pocketing his phone and drifting towards the brightly lit shop, which stood at the corner in a riot of neon and fluorescence. A well-timed pain in the pit of Thomas’s stomach reminded him that he still hadn’t managed to eat properly since he’d left Manchester, and that his only attempt since had been interrupted that morning, when Jimmy had come blasting into his life. Still, it was hard to say if it was the hunger or the curve of Jimmy’s bare back that called Thomas down the pavement and into the chip shop after him.

Thomas was in the process of calculating how much money he could afford to blow on food when he found a plastic fork being thrust under his nose. He glanced up to find Jimmy already holding a newspaper-wrapped piece of cod, which dripped with oil and vinegar. “Pancake owes you for probably ruining your cigarettes,” Jimmy was saying with an ounce of trepidation. “So it’s on me – don’t worry about it.”

Thomas hadn’t even thought to check if the rest of his new packet of smokes had become waterlogged, but in that moment, he didn’t care. Accepting the fork, he tucked his bat under one arm and walked close enough to Jimmy that their arms occasionally brushed as they took turns spearing mouthfuls of the fried fish in Jimmy’s hand. Once in a while, Jimmy would purposefully drop a few chips for Pancake, while Thomas tried hard to remind himself they weren’t on a date.   

“The bloke in the chip shop said there’s a little B&B we could stop at just down this way,” Jimmy was saying, a long piece of fried potato wagging between his lips as he drew it into his mouth with a series of little chomps. “I asked if they’d let us bring Pancake in, an’ he said that after the season, they’d rent to criminals if it meant fillin’ a bed, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“How… comforting,” Thomas said, furrowing his brow at Pancake, who was trotting proudly alongside Jimmy, his nose raised snootily in the air. Even as far as most pet owners went, Jimmy seemed to have a very particular attachment to Pancake, almost to a point where Thomas wondered if Jimmy lacked an attachment to anything else. Thomas might have been sad to make such an observation if he didn’t already know exactly how it felt. Tactfully, he asked, “And what’ll you do if they _do_ make a fuss about your dog?”

“We’ve just been sleepin’ in the car when that happens,” Jimmy informed him with a shrug. Then he veered into Thomas, nailing him in the hip with Pancake’s bag of accoutrements. “But it’s not just about just us anymore, ey? Listen: if they turn out to be a bunch of wankers about Pancake, no reason you ought to suffer. We’ll wait for you.”

“I’m flexible, me,” said Thomas, who was once again mentally running numbers at the prospect of putting up money for hotels every night until they reached London or Oxford or wherever. He wasn’t sure how long he’d have to stretch his savings, and it wouldn’t do to be irresponsible. Except for whenever Jimmy’s shape flickered through his vision: Jimmy made him want to be as irresponsible as possible.

“Oh, good!” Jimmy enthused around the last mouthful of fish between them. “Then you won’t mind if we camp outside sometimes. We did that twice – was it twice?” He addressed the question to Pancake as though he expected an answer. “Three times,” Jimmy amended when Pancake gave his master just as many woofs in response; “Those were the most fun so far. Definitely.”

Crinkling a brow, Thomas was immediately greeted with a new curiosity. “Just how long have you been on the road, Jimmy?” he wondered. He’d been under the impression it had been a similar measure of time to his own journey, but from the way Jimmy spoke, he wasn’t so sure.

“I think it’s been about a fortnight. I don’t know; I forget,” Jimmy replied as he dumped the remainder of the chips onto the sidewalk, much to Pancake’s delight. He lingered beneath a lamppost long enough to crinkle the greasy newspaper and pitch it into a nearby bin, and then crouched down next to Pancake to ruffle his fur. Thomas noticed Jimmy had become strangely reticent on the topic, and decided not to press it. There would be plenty of time to find out what had inspired such a magnificent bout of wanderlust, Jimmy had decided to go zigzagging across the entire country with such frenetic randomness.

When Pancake was done with his impromptu snack, they started walking again, and soon came upon the promised B&B at the end of the road. It was a quaint little place that had green trim and coordinating flowers in all the window boxes. Mindless of their soaked and bedraggled appearance, Thomas and Jimmy strolled in through the front door, which opened into an elegant foyer with oak wainscoting and a sort of Edwardian sense of décor. Behind the front desk sat a beautiful young woman with hair that hung in dark, dark curls over her shoulders, and graceful, round features. Her denim, bellbottomed jeans made a rebellious contrast to her very traditional surroundings.

“Welcome to the Grantham Arms Inn,” she yawned tiredly, a stark reminder that the hour was getting late. But when she straightened up to get a better look at her newest patrons, her entire attitude shifted at the sight of Pancake, who brought a lovely smile to her face. “How can I help you?”

“We need a room,” said Jimmy, casting an almost uncertain glance at Thomas just before he added: “For the three of us. Umm – two beds, or a sofa or somethin’. If you’ve got it.”

“Mm, one for you, and one for this big, handsome fellow?” the young lady asked, leaning over the desk with a cheeky smile.

Bored by flattery that didn’t have a direct, personal benefit, Thomas pretended like he didn’t hear the compliment and, instead, remained distracted by the gorgeous grandfather clock that stood beside the desk. But an additional bout of cooing from the woman soon made it clear that she had been gushing over _Pancake_ – and left Thomas with the understanding that she had assumed he and Jimmy were a collective ‘you’. A collective you sharing one bed. He swallowed and kept his focus solely on the clock, terrified to assert a correction, yet emboldened by the implication of his silence.

“ _Three_ big, handsome fellows,” Jimmy said with a grin, which made the girl laugh. He clearly had no reservations about dishing out his natural charm in ample doses wherever it pleased him.

Slain on the spot by the nature of such a comment, Thomas made an effort to remain casual (and on his feet) despite the whipped up frenzy it had done to his insides. His eyes fixed on the swinging clock pendulum, he gripped the handle of his cricket bat and tried to bury it with a joke: “I’m not sure that exact description is appropriate for all of us. Someone here is very decidedly short.”

“Pancake is quite offended by that, Thomas. He’s sensitive about his size,” Jimmy said matter-of-factly, though the amused smirk he wore still managed to gleam through his display of feigned indignation.

“Ohh, that’s adorable,” the young lady smiled, though it was hard to say if the adjective was meant for Jimmy or his pet. “You’re lucky my father’s gone up already. He’d never let you get to bed with a dog as fine as that.”

“So it’s alright if he stays with us?” Jimmy clarified, shifting the conversation back to business.

The woman laughed in a guileless way that Thomas appreciated in its sincerity. “My father may be a hypocrite about politics and a lot of other things, and he probably would have a word or two to mutter about the state you two are in,” she said, leaning a plump cheek atop her palm as she glanced them up and down; “but he’d be damned if he was ever a hypocrite about dogs. He _loves_ dogs.”

She then flipped around to a grid of hooks that occupied the wall behind the desk, most of which were hung with numbered brass keys. She took one from the middle row and then turned back to hand it to Jimmy. “It’s on the second floor, last door on the right. My favorite room in the house, especially in the mornings,” she told him as he took the key from her. Then she gave him a little wink, supplying an extra tidbit: “And the most comfortable furniture, if I do say so myself.”

Thomas coughed.

“Bril,” said Jimmy obliviously, and the young lady opened a large registrar book, which she then pushed towards Jimmy. Idly, he spun the key ring around his index finger and then caught the brass implement in his fist as he filled in his personal details. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas noted for the first time that Jimmy was left-handed.

“Right you are… James,” she nodded, reading over his entry in the book once he was finished. “I’m Sybil, by the way. Just ring the desk if you need anything.”

Jimmy thanked her and then started for the stairs, tottering comically beneath the weight of all his baggage. Pancake was quick to dart after him, pointedly wedging himself in the space between Jimmy and Thomas just as Thomas was about to alight the first step. Thomas inwardly flinched, his irritation in direct conflict with the knowledge of how much the dog meant to Jimmy. He attempted to find a middle ground.

“Looks like they made a fuss over your mate after all,” he said as he climbed after Jimmy and Pancake. He hoped the dimness that hovered over the staircase masked the size of his swollen heart.

“Yeah, but the good kind,” Jimmy said cheerfully. “That lady, Sybil – she knew what she was about.”  

Thomas agreed, though the jealous demon within him flared with his own imagination as he tried to pick apart what exactly Jimmy meant by that. “I have a friend at home who would like her,” he was quick to insert, thinking of Tom. It wasn’t completely untrue: Tom had an affinity for confident brunettes.  

“Oh, yeah?” Jimmy glanced back at Thomas, and Thomas pretended that it was because Jimmy was actually interested in his life. “How’s that?”

A storm of trepidation overtook Thomas at the question, again thrown by exactly what inspired the things that came out of Jimmy’s mouth. Thomas’s lips parted in silent contemplation for a few seconds before he vaguely replied, “Just something she said is all.”

Jimmy seemed satisfied with the answer and continued up the steps without asking anything else. He followed Sybil’s directions down the second floor hall, tiptoeing by the communal bathroom and padding lightly across the creaking floorboards to their door. As Jimmy awkwardly juggled his baggage in an effort to get the key into the lock, Thomas snapped his teeth at Pancake behind his back, unable to resist letting the territorial animal know that there was a new alpha in the pack.

Pancake bounded into the room the moment Jimmy unlocked it, inspecting everything he could run his nose against with a sniff and a lick. Thomas tried to ignore his distaste for the slobbering investigation with his own glance around. There was no wonder why Sybil liked the space so much: it was a cozy garret in the eastern corner of the house that featured a sloping ceiling, damask wallpaper, and large windows dressed up in lace. A pair of matching twin beds faced a mahogany writing desk, and an inviting divan plumped with cushions occupied a nearby corner.

Jimmy deposited his burden on the far side of the bed nearest the divan and popped his strained joints with swinging arms and a roll of his neck, his naked back facing Thomas. Unable to contain the urge, Thomas watched Jimmy stretch, his breath hitching at the discovery of a tattoo on Jimmy’s left shoulder blade, which had previously been hidden beneath the layers of baggage straps that no longer crisscrossed Jimmy’s back. It was a black shape that reminded Thomas of an asterisk, enticing in its simplicity – especially when it bent and distorted with each movement Jimmy made.

Certain he was dying, Thomas put his case down beside the other bed and sat down on the edge, gripping the handle of his cricket bat like it was the one thing keeping him alive. He remained as such while Jimmy went through a practiced routine of setting out food and water for Pancake’s convenience, bustling around the room like he was on his own. Thomas was entranced by the glow that came about with Jimmy’s unguarded behavior. Though even with such springtime warmth, nothing about Jimmy was particularly mellow, especially with that go-to-hell expression that flavored even his calmest mood.

Mindlessly, Jimmy then started to undress, and Thomas panicked, unsure if it would be more suspicious to purposefully avert the situation and hurry to the bath, or to stay as he was. Just as Jimmy’s damp jeans dropped around his ankles, Thomas fumbled his cricket bat as he clumsily groped for his case. Jimmy kicked his trousers aside, his back still turned towards Thomas as he went down on his knees to rummage through his duffel for a fresh pair of boxers.  

But while Jimmy was ignorant of the restless weather churning around Thomas’s head, Pancake noticed the attention Thomas was paying to the fat little chickens that adorned Jimmy’s underwear. Thomas could hear the St. Bernard’s guttural growling as he forced his attention away from Jimmy and onto the strangely unwieldy clasps of his case.

Jimmy hissed an idle ‘ _Shh’_ at Pancake as he pulled out a pair of his penguin boxers and flicked them warningly at his pet, while Thomas continued to awkwardly battle with his luggage. He met unbelievable amounts of difficulty in keeping his virtues clean with Jimmy stripping himself so nearby, and was once again assaulted with images of how he’d like to praise Jimmy’s body down there on the floor – up against the wall, over the divan. It was more than his heart that was growing tender….

No longer able to take another minute of it, he excused himself to the bathroom down the hall, grabbing a random handful of clothes that turned out to not even match when he got there. At least the late hour and the emptiness of the bed and breakfast found the washroom thankfully unoccupied, and Thomas hurried to latch himself inside. There was only a clawfooted tub with a French showerhead perched atop the faucet for washing, but it would do. Thomas stoppered the drain and made the water hot enough to steam up the room. Then, completely tortured, sat down on the closed toilet seat to bury his face in his hands and wait.

 _Twenty-four hours, Thomas_ , he lamented through the blurble of rushing water; _It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, and look at you. You do this every goddamn time…._

Except he didn’t, and he was well aware of it, too. Certainly Thomas was one to get wrapped up in blinded, romanticized affections – which both of his most serious, long-term relationships were prime testaments to – but nothing had ever prepared Thomas for _this_. This silly, besotted, unprecedented conduct around someone who likely didn’t even swing his way, which had completely ravaged Thomas’s mind and soul more quickly than wildfire. He had no idea what to do.

When the bath had been filled with about four inches of water, Thomas closed the tap and peeled away his sea-soaked clothing until he wore only the silver cross around his neck. The scalding water felt good against his pale skin in a self-inflicting way, and he reclined back in the tub to let it burn his flesh as efficiently as possible. Unmoving, he lay there as if he had been stuffed into a coffin, and watched the steaming water curl up towards the ceiling as he made every effort to stop thinking about Jimmy. It was literally impossible. With a sigh and a stifled groan, Thomas forwent soaping himself up in favor of combating his desire with a practiced hand and dangerous visions.

Afterwards, he attacked himself with a thorough scrubbing and a quick hair wash – his first since Manchester – and then lingered in the bath until the water turned icy and fatigue had started to force his eyelids closed. He drained the tub and got out only to realize he’d forgotten to bring a towel in his rush. Patting himself dry with the unneeded polo shirt he’d accidentally brought with him, Thomas redressed for bed in clean underwear and an undershirt. It was more than he usually wore to sleep, but he didn’t want to take any chances around Jimmy. Then, steeling himself, he gathered up his discarded clothing and headed back to the room.

When he got there, Jimmy was propped up against his headboard and reading aloud to Pancake from the Gideon’s Bible he’d unearthed from the nightstand between the two beds. “Thought you’d drowned in there,” he commented idly as Thomas approached his own bed, which gave off an uncharacteristically haphazard impression with his open case and disturbed belongings littering the mattress.

“Almost,” Thomas shrugged, his mind instantly wandering to the time he’d spent touching himself to pictures of Jimmy in the throes of passion. He sat down on his bed to tidy up his space; Jimmy returned to the Bible, albeit silently.

“Don’t let me stop you,” Thomas said, glancing up at Jimmy, who was idly scratching the scruff of Pancake’s neck as he flicked through the book.

“It’s just Pancake,” Jimmy returned as he clapped the book shut and flung it unceremoniously back into the drawer where he’d found it. “He’s been in the strangest mood all day, but the sound of me voice seems to help, and I didn’t think he’d want to listen to the nonsense Ivy texts me.”

Almost automatically, Thomas’s eyes found Jimmy’s mobile, which had been left to charge on the writing desk across the room. He thought it was interesting that Jimmy had purposefully plugged it in such an inconvenient location, especially since it seemed to be flashing impatiently for his attention. He happily pushed it out of mind. “Well,” Thomas said as he buckled his suitcase closed again, satisfied it had been restored to order, “at least you might teach Pancake somethin’ wholesome, readin’ him scripture and such.”  

Jimmy rolled a dubious eye in Thomas’s direction, skeptically wondering, “You actually go in for that sort of tripe?” He snorted and folded his hands behind his head, “Funny, I didn’t figure you’d be the sort.”  

“My father were a vicar,” Thomas told him by way of explanation, though he didn’t much fancy going into detail on the subject. He busied himself with setting his case on the floor beside the bed, fixatedly propping his cricket bat up against it for the night. His silver cross fell out from beneath the collar of his undershirt as he bent over to do so, like a secret that had accidentally tumbled out of hiding.

“Do you want to be one?” Jimmy asked.

This confused Thomas until he lifted his chin and found Jimmy examining his cross from beneath hooded eyelids. His face was terribly unreadable, and it made Thomas’s mouth dry.

“A vicar,” Jimmy clarified in a low tone that matched his layered expression. “D’ya want to be one as well?”

Clearing his throat, Thomas straightened and ferried the cross back beneath his collar. “No,” he said quickly as he swung his legs up onto the bed. “No, I don’t think the lifestyle would suit me.”

“I see,” said Jimmy, though the way he spoke made it hard for Thomas to ascertain exactly what it was Jimmy that had come to understand.

Thomas’s curiosity on the topic was short-lived, however, for Jimmy flipped quickly to another mood as he thumped his hand on the mattress to summon Pancake to his side. The bed complained loudly as the enormous dog jumped up next to Jimmy, who shifted to make space. “Snap out the light whenever you feel like it,” Jimmy told Thomas before lavishing his attention onto Pancake. He kissed the St. Bernard between the ears as they settled down together, and murmured something against his fur that Thomas couldn’t quite discern.  

“Alright,” Thomas absently agreed, distracted by the way Jimmy had curled up with Pancake like he was a giant stuffed toy. The pair of them were too unwieldy for the narrow bed, with Jimmy pressed up against Pancake’s body, and Pancake’s forepaws hanging over the edge of the mattress. With an arm draped over his dog, Jimmy almost immediately nodded off into oblivion, while Thomas was again bowled over by his desire to be the one lying in Jimmy’s embrace. He then berated himself for his continued folly: it still felt like being all alone, even when he was no longer by himself.  

The best solution Thomas could come up with was to switch off the lamp between the two beds, though casting the room into starry violet felt more like a punishment than a help. The exhaustion that had visited him in the bath had faded away since his return, leaving him wide awake and blinking into the night as a chorus of snoring rose up from the other bed. From afar, Thomas could hear the faint chiming of the grandfather clock as it struck midnight downstairs. 

So ended the third day of the rest of Thomas’s life, but the first one through which he’d been alive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to head into finals, so hopefully this long-ass chapter will make up for the fact I might not have time to finish another by next weekend. I hope you enjoyed it and that all this wandering is somehow intriguing enough. 
> 
> The chapter title and the song Thomas associates with Jimmy on the beach is an old doowop song from the 50s. I think the most famous recording of it is sadly the Elvis one, but pretty much everyone and their mom has sung it at some point, hehe. Let me stop before I go into a music history lesson, haha.


	5. Thieves and Murderers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pinto gains a new passenger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorrryyyyy this seems a bit rushed. I'm dead in the middle of finals and of course decided to rewrite a bunch of this in the middle of last night. So it's super unedited. I hope you like it anyway.

 

The eastern light streaming in through the lace-draped windows printed hundreds of bright morning sun diamonds across Thomas’s cheek as he squinted back to wakefulness. He drowsily sat up, blinking at the room in confusion as he tried to place his surroundings – until his gaze fell upon the unmade bed beside his and all the events of the previous day came flooding back. He groaned and touched his forehead, massaging it as the joy in meeting Jimmy was quickly drowned out by the rest of the world’s displeasures.

Finding himself alone, any momentary worry that Jimmy had stolen away in the early hours was assuaged by the fact that Jimmy’s belongings were still strewn across his half of the room. A few stray bits of kibble decorated the floor around Pancake’s food bowl, which appeared to be less full than it had been when Jimmy had laid it out the night before. Thomas hadn’t figured Jimmy for an early riser, but by the look of things, it seemed he and Pancake had stirred long before Thomas. And while the day was still reasonably new, Thomas blamed his late start on the difficulty he’d had falling asleep. Searching the room for a timepiece of some kind, Thomas deliberated where Jimmy might have got off to – and whether or not he’d be too late for breakfast.

Just as Thomas had discovered a little clock sitting on the writing desk, Jimmy’s mobile started blinking and buzzing on its corded leash nearby. A moral conundrum arose for Thomas as he stared at the device. On the one hand, he barely knew Jimmy, and it would be fairly discourteous to go snooping through his phone before they’d even really built any real semblance of trust; on the other, he was going mad trying to figure out what Jimmy and his estranged girlfriend, Ivy, were constantly texting to one another. Jimmy had said they were on the outs, but that could mean at least a hundred things to Thomas’s mind. He snatched up the phone, ignoring the part of him that scolded the dark necessities that were such a part of his natural design, and swiped his thumb across the lock screen. If his excuse for doing so was to check the time, he’d long since crossed that threshold the moment he tapped in Jimmy’s four-digit code, which he’d managed espy after so many stolen glances. Pancake’s image flipped over to a candid snapshot of a much younger Jimmy shoving an ice cream cone into the face of a gangly, red-haired boy, who was halfway through trying to take a large bite of the treat. Thomas smiled despite himself, endeared to almost anything about Jimmy – even when it was less than nice.

There were a few missed calls from Ivy, plus 26 unread messages waiting for Jimmy, which Thomas took the liberty of investigating without any scruples. Three of them turned out to be from his mum, two from an unlabeled number, and a surprising twelve from someone called Alfred. Thomas scrolled by them unimportantly until he found the remaining allocation, all of which were also from Ivy. Shamelessly, he tapped her name and brought up the conversation.

_Me: [21:37, yesterday]_  
_for the 10000000th time  
_ _if i wanted u to know where i’ve gone id have told you_

_Ivy Stuart: [21:39, yesterday]  
_ _well we’re all v worried about you. esp ur mum_

_Me: [21:46, yesterday]_  
_good joke. thx 4 that.  
_ _not_

_Ivy Stuart: [21:49, yesterday]  
_ _ur so inconsiderate jimmy kent!!!!!!1!!!!!_

_Ivy Stuart: [22:13, yesterday]  
_ _sry, sry. i didn’t mean to sound so rude_

_Ivy Stuart: [22:14, yesterday]_  
_plz don’t take that personally  
_ _i want to fix this please jimmmy_

_Ivy Stuart: [22:27]  
_ _just come home and everything will be fine_

_Ivy Stuart: [22:35]_  
_im not even upset about it anymore.  
_ _honest im not_

_Ivy Stuart: [22:51]_  
_plz jimmy i love you  
_ _i love you_

_Ivy Stuart: [23:01]  
_ _u know i do_

Thomas enjoyed Jimmy’s lack of response to such correspondence far more than he should have, even if there had been perfectly justifiable reasons for it. Still, temporary mollification about the Ivy mystery didn’t fully solve the larger question as to what had gone on between them. The desperation to fill the gap quickly conjured the furthered temptation to go poking through Jimmy’s other unread messages, suddenly curious about who Alfred was, or if Jimmy’s mother really _was_ that concerned about him. Thomas knew he was digging his grave deeper with his insatiable need to unravel Jimmy’s complications, but he was already broken beyond repair.

Just as he slid his thumb across Alfred’s name, the sound of the key being jiggled in the lock outside preemptively interrupted any more delving. Thomas flung the phone to the desk like it had burned him and quickly strode to the other side of the room. The door opened, and Jimmy found Thomas in the process of opening his case for a fresh change of clothes.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” said Jimmy amicably as he casually deposited himself upon the divan. “Was startin’ to worry I’d have to take drastic measures to get you up. Sleep like the dead, you.”

Wordlessly, Thomas surveyed Jimmy’s form, draped across the low-backed sofa and clad in running shorts and a vest as he was, and had to force himself back to sense when his mind started conjuring the sorts of _‘drastic measures’_ he’d have liked Jimmy to employ on him. But after a few uninterrupted moments of reveling in such a fantasy, Thomas was quick to realize something was missing. “Where’s Pancake?” he suddenly asked, surprising himself with his own concern that the St. Bernard wasn’t glued to Jimmy’s heels.

“Oh, he’s downstairs. Sybil’s father intercepted him when we got back from our mornin’ jog,” Jimmy said, flapping a careless hand in Thomas’s direction. “She weren’t jokin’ last night when she said he _loves_ his dogs.”

With a trace of arrogance, Thomas snorted, “Sounds like you’ve got a bit of competition.”

He wore a smirk as he rifled through his case in search of something to wear, eventually settling on a two-tone popover shirt and a grey blazer. But as he was pulling the shirt over his head, Jimmy started to reply, and had twisted completely around to face him by the time he’d got the collar over his chin.

“No one loves Pancake more’n me,” Jimmy said with an odd brand of gravity, his stare quite unwavering. “But that Robert Crawley’s been fawnin’ that damn dog like he’s the Prince of bloody Wales all through brekkie. It’ll go to his fuzzy little brain, it will. I spoil him plenty well enough, me.”

“No one would argue that,” Thomas said flatly, his focus on wrangling his legs into the trousers he’d just dragged out of his case. He stood up to sidle them up his thighs and over his hips, fastening the fly as he added in as casual a way he could muster: “But maybe a little rivalry is good for the pair of you. Might do to let your Pancake know he’s not the only one who can play that game.”

“Meanin’?” Jimmy was watching Thomas dress with a very unreadable eye, and Thomas worried that perhaps he was becoming too bold in making such remarks about Jimmy’s treasured companion.

“ _Meanin’_ ,” Thomas rushed to counter, though he had to quickly derail himself with a calming breath before he let his foolish mouth betray him. He made a fuss over tucking in his shirt, feigning inconsequence as he said, “Sometimes it’s good to rely on other people now and then.”

Which was far more diplomatic than telling Jimmy that if someone else wanted to steal the affections of his dog with such royal placations, Thomas was more than happy to counterbalance it with a similar level of adulation for Jimmy. He shrugged on his blazer and straightened the lapels with a stiff jerk. “Is breakfast still on, by the way?” he asked, attempting to steer the conversation away from unclean ideas about other things he’d like to do to Jimmy.

“Yeah, and it’s crackin’, too. Best hurry down,” said Jimmy, who had taken an interest in watching Thomas attempt to blindly smooth his hair without a mirror. “You look real sharp today,” he observed blithely.

Though such attire was fairly typical for Thomas’s wardrobe, the observation still made his stomach drop. His gullet bobbed slightly as he bent to roll on a pair of argyle socks, fruitlessly trying not to let the remark mean more than it did. “Got to have some standards,” he managed to quietly rejoin, almost more undone that there didn’t seem to be any sort of hidden agenda on Jimmy’s part about what it meant to be a well-dressed man. He’d already fielded a lifetime’s worth of jabs from his father about being ‘too prissy’.

“You’ll make me look bad,” moaned Jimmy, flopping back across the divan like a blanket that had been thrown across the cushions. Privately, Thomas thought Jimmy was more dangerous with his sweat-dampened vest and flushed knees, but he kept that to himself.

Toeing into his loafers, which were a bit crusty but at least dried after yesterday’s debacle on the beach, Thomas instead said, “Again, nothin’ wrong with a bit of competition.” The arrogance leaked out in the smirk blossoming upon his face.

“Yeah,” agreed Jimmy with a sort of faraway lilt. Thomas glanced up to find the blond staring absently out the window, like the lull of the ocean had lured him out beyond the waves with the repetition of his very own name. Thomas dared not to breathe, certain that even the rock of his heart would make the halo of soft morning light tremble away from Jimmy’s face. It was a wicked, beautiful image he couldn’t have even conjured in dreams. His whole world seemed to have caught fire, especially as Jimmy slowly angled his gaze in Thomas’s direction.

But like it had been blown away on a stray sea breeze, the screech of a gull cut through the ethereality and snuffed it back to the plain grays as Jimmy began to speak. “We should get out of here soon. If you don’t mind gatherin’ up our things while I reclaim me dog, I’ll try and snag you a bit to eat on me way out.”

“Avoid any of that heavy stuff, then. Nothin’ too greasy,” Thomas directed with a cheeky curl of his lip. “Must maintain me girlish figure somehow.”

A sharp round of laughter arose from Jimmy as he popped back up to his feet, practically rocking on the balls of his feet like he was trying to stand taller than Thomas. “You’re a smug bastard, you know that?” he said with a mischievous grin, happy to look down on Thomas for the few moments Thomas was still sitting.

“I’m told,” said Thomas, also getting up. His full height was a quick defeat for Jimmy, who stood at least three inches shorter than him.

The sarcasm seemed to win a point with Jimmy, and found truce with another bark of laughter. “More competition, I s’pose,” he said confidently, plucking up his mobile from the desk on his way towards the door. As he flung it open and vanished into the hall, Yorkshire twang called back to Thomas: “Now step lively and meet me in the foyer. I’ve got to rescue me best mate from diabetic shock.”

The residual grin Jimmy had left on Thomas’s face refused to fade, even as he went about buckling his things back into his case, and then taking on the task of wrangling the explosion of items that Jimmy had splattered across his half of the room. What might have normally been a tedious chore became more like a game to Thomas as he scavenged for loose pairs of boxers and stray shirts and socks. It was probably a safer breed of distraction than any more spying through Jimmy’s phone at any rate, and was a touch relieved that Jimmy had unwittingly snuffed out that dangerous lure by taking it with him. With any luck, Jimmy would be too busy obsessing over Pancake to notice that there was anything different about his SMS tab.

When all was said and done, Thomas had learned things about Jimmy that he probably would have never thought to ask about, but was still all the more pleased to know. For instance, it seemed that Jimmy truly had an affinity for animals, as every pair of underpants he owned was bore a print of some creature or another, as did almost all of his graphic tees. His style bordered on the clean cut, preppy side, though there were a few random articles of clothing that still gave him a bit of a punky edge (like the patch-lined leather jacket and the inordinate amount of ripped tartan). There was more Bazooka, an iPod and two books also crammed into Jimmy’s duffel: one was a Daredevil comic book called _Born Again_ , and the other was the novel, _Ulysses_. His spare trainers were a pair of red Vans skate shoes, and green seemed to be his favorite color – if a sheer count of such toned items was any sort of system to go by.

Pancake’s taste, meanwhile, was a sort of offshoot of Jimmy’s. All of his toys were fat stuffed animals, most of his accessories were green, and he had more packed snacks than Jimmy did. Thomas spent an inordinate amount of time trying to cram the lot of it back into its bag, unsure how Jimmy had ever got so much crap into the satchel in the first place. Thomas felt vaguely odd doing so, fairly certain Pancake had more comforts in his life than Thomas ever had growing up knee-deep in the Mersey.

He was just starting to clear off the bureau beneath the vanity mirror, where Jimmy had upended a bag of toiletries, when a sharp knock clunked against the door, which still hung wide open. He glanced up, half-expecting to see Jimmy, but was surprised to instead find Sybil. “Mind if I come in?” she asked with a sheepish shrug.

“It’s your house, isn’t it?” Thomas shrugged as he turned his attention back down gathering up Jimmy’s things. A capped toothbrush, a comb and a small jar of Axe pomade all dropped heavily into the zippered pouch.  

“Well, it’s your room. At least for a little bit longer,” said Sybil as she took a step inside, her hands clasped behind her waist. She waited for Thomas to supply some sort of response, but found him steady in his task. She filled in the gap, commenting, “You two don’t waste time, do you?”  

“Time with what?” Thomas cringed as if he had been called to order on all the inordinate things he’d been entertaining about Jimmy, and how quickly they had taken to gestate.

“You know, _life_. Being free, going from one place to the next,” she said almost as if it was obvious. She took another careful step towards him, the soft tap of which dragged Thomas’s attention to her with the same intensity as some sort of great spectacle. “Making your life worthwhile with someone you love.”

Terror-stricken, the blood drained from Thomas’s face and left him frozen as he watched her draw slightly nearer. “I-It’s not what you think,” he managed to whisper raggedly, quite frightened that if someone as strange to him as Sybil could know his mind so easily, then how clumsy had he been around _Jimmy_? A pain that resonated with being kicked roadside as he had just the other day returned to him like a recurring nightmare.

“Isn’t it?” Sybil cocked her head, her dark eyes drawing a steady line to Thomas’s hands, which he quickly realized (to his continued horror) were cupping a short streamer of condoms. The tip of his tongue surreptitiously wet his bottom lip as the packet’s advertising clarified just what sort of man Jimmy was beneath those deceptively endearing boxer shorts he wore.

“Not quite, anyway,” Thomas was quick to amend as he shoved the condoms as far into Jimmy’s toiletry bag as he could get them. Sybil might have got one impression, but to Thomas, they were a very destructive end to his pleasured fantasies about Jimmy. As he jerkily started throwing the rest of Jimmy’s bathroom accoutrements into the bag, he asked with exasperation, “If y’don’t mind me askin’, miss, but why are you here?” He paused to consider the answer for a moment, and then added, “If you need to collect the key, it’s Jimmy’s who’s got that.”

“Jimmy’s quite got his hands full trying to win his dog back from my father,” Sybil said frankly, somehow both coy and bold at once. “But while we’re on the subject, I believe I heard you boys were heading down to London? Is that true?”

“It might be,” Thomas replied slowly. He zipped up the bag and finally met her determined expression dead-on. “Why?”

“Well, it’s only that I heard Jimmy – it’s Jimmy, isn’t it? Your friend?” She didn’t wait for Thomas to give any kind of response and continued straight on with her story. “He mentioned to my father that you were passing through Oxford on your way to London, which got Papa all in a tizzy, as my oldest sister is at uni there with her fiancé, and he’s stupidly proud of it. And I just thought, ‘Well, if I’ve got to get to London for something I’d rather not tell Papa about, wouldn’t it just be so simple to say that I was only going to visit Mary instead?’”

Thomas certainly had to respect her gumption, though he still wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to ask. “And you think your father would let you road trip with two strangers passin’ through any more than he’d let you do… whatever it is you want to do in London?” It was odd making such a reasonable argument in the heat of all the strangeness that had come to plague his entire life as of late. He felt positively alien doing so.

Sybil had a prepared response for that: “Papa is an absolute fool for dogs, I told you as much,” she said with a fierce nod. “You could be a lot of thieves and murderers for all he knows, but he’d trust you based purely on how well he gets on with that gorgeous dog of yours.”

“The dog is Jimmy’s,” said Thomas flatly, unsure how he felt about the whole proposition. “And you’d have to ask him if it’s alright. His dog, his car, his rules.”

“I’m sure you don’t mind that a bit,” Sybil said with a wink that Thomas barely had time to absorb before she had sprung back towards the hall on a light heel. “I’ve just got my case here. I’ll see what your Jimmy thinks.” And then she was gone, leaving Thomas alone to gape at the wallpaper in confusion.

Thomas managed to get the rest of their belongings packed up without any more disruption, and then began ferrying it all downstairs to meet Jimmy in the foyer. His first trip, anchored down with the bags belonging to Jimmy and Pancake, found Jimmy leaning over the front desk with Pancake back at his side. H appeared to be settling up for the room with Sybil – though the turn to his features was alarmingly impish. It wasn’t that Thomas was completely opposed to helping Sybil, who seemed very fine and good, but it deadened him to think of yet another individual tampering with the mix. Pancake was obstructive enough: did he really need a pretty girl intervening with what thin hope he had to get close to Jimmy? In his ideal, parallel universe, he and Jimmy were alone, driving nowhere with nothing but stars in their rainclouds and antimatter under their wheels. His reality was more shaken with thunder and pitfalls, it seemed.

Pancake caught him staring and gave another one of his low, annoyed growls, to which Thomas testily mouthed back, “Piss off.”

By the time he had gone back up to retrieve his own case and his precious cricket bat, Jimmy was finished with the transaction, and greeted him with grin and a wave, but no indication of how much he owed for his share of the fee. Thomas supposed he would be responsible for their next stopover, though the details of that seemed unimportant with the bead of joy that ricocheted through him the longer Jimmy smiled. The corners of his own mouth had never had such exercise as with Jimmy, for the shape of his lips had lifted into yet another line of pleasure to see Jimmy looking so well.

“I’m just going to help them with their things, Papa. They do have quite a lot,” Sybil told her father, who had snuck around Jimmy to get in a few final moments with the dog before the left. His attention far more occupied by the dog, he blindly agreed with a toss of one hand. Sybil was still talking, pushing her luck a bit: “And then I thought I’d take them down to the pier. It’s ever so a lovely day, and it’d be a shame for them to go on without a proper visit.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” her father sighed, at last dropping his wiggling fingers from Pancake’s scruff, much to Pancake’s chagrin. With a touch of his age, the man pushed himself to his feet so that he could give his daughter a very stern look, his index finger stiff with adamancy. “But be quick about it. There’s much to be done round here, especially with both your sisters away.”

“I promise this is all the fun I’ll have for today,” said Sybil, which Jimmy seemed to find particularly hilarious. Thomas quickly noted that he was laughing at the crossed fingers Sybil held behind her back, just out of her father’s sight.

“Well, best be gettin’ on, right?” Jimmy said at an obnoxiously high volume. Pancake barked loudly in agreement, which almost immediately softened Sybil’s father. He made another affectionate face at the St. Bernard as Jimmy picked up his duffel, while Sybil lifted Pancake’s bag – and another case Thomas knew for certain didn’t belong to them. Feigning ignorance, he shifted his own case in hand and swung his bat over one shoulder to bring up the rear. Behind him, he could hear Sybil’s father taking up residence behind the front desk; the crackle of a radio being switched on trumpeted his exit.

He was just about to pass through the front door, which Sybil had left swinging behind her, when a sudden exclamation from Sybil’s father caught him on his way out. “I say, none of you mentioned you were a cricketing team, either!” the man enthused with an appreciative nod at Thomas’s bat. “That’s quite a fine piece you have there. May I see it?”

Thomas glanced around for a quick excuse, but found nothing. Sequestering the heavy sigh he wanted to push though his lungs, he returned to the lobby desk and wordlessly laid his cherry red bat atop it. “Not a team,” Thomas mumbled. “Just me.”

Sybil’s father picked it up for a closer inspection, admirably crooning, “Well it’s quite a lovely English willow you’ve got here. Looks like its seen a few days – a few wins, I take it?” He gave Thomas an almost expectant look.

“A few,” agreed Thomas, who wasn’t really in the mood the brag. He stared at the radio, which was spitting out a newscast, a little anxious to be on his way. “It was my father’s,” Thomas elaborated in hopes that enough detail would satisfy Sybil’s father’s curiosity. “And his father’s before that. It’s a bit of a family thing, I s’pose.”

“Well, you’ve taken fine care of it. It’s certainly stood up to a beating or two,” said Sybil’s father, running his fingers across the lacquered red one last time before presenting it back to Thomas. “Who do you play for, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“No one anymore, really,” Thomas shrugged as he accepted the bat with less than enthusiastic airs. “Just a little pick-up now and again. For old time’s sake.”

The radio hissed a loud, unpleasant pitch that made both Thomas and Sybil’s father wince, and then bled back into its typical drudgery. Accident up on the A493 – do proceed with caution – another US politician’s blustery fiddle-faddle, another loss for the local football club; Merseyside police spread their efforts across the county in search of clues in a death; the Queen acquires a new corgi; the ongoing national debate of jam or cream first on a teatime scone. Thomas groaned at the mediocrity of it all, wishing that he could escape it quickly, and run back to Jimmy’s side. His bat back in hand, he offered Sybil’s father a curt nod, and then hurried for the door.

“Oh, just one more thing,” Sybil’s father called to him just as his foot was landing outside the threshold.

Thomas breathed heavily and paused, hoping that he was at least winning Sybil some extra time to pack her things into Jimmy’s Pinto. Turning back to face the front desk, Thomas waited expectantly for the inevitable question.  

“When you did play, what were your colors?” he asked, the grin of an enthusiast alighting his features.

“Oxford blue, sir,” Thomas answered succinctly, and then hurried out before the twist of nostalgia had a chance to wreck it havoc.

It wasn’t until Thomas was halfway to the pier that he realized he’d been running all that way. His blazer was heavy with sweat and had become quite uncomfortable to wear, so he shucked it off and draped it over one arm as he slowed to a much more natural gait. Luckily, the pier wasn’t hard to find – nor was Jimmy, Pancake and Sybil. Jimmy’s exuberance carried down the dock, mingling with the light carnival music that exuded from an arcade halfway down the boardwalk. Thomas approached the trio, which was sitting just outside the arcade on the boards. It seemed that they had already packed the other stuff into the car, for Sybil was holding only a popsicle, and Jimmy was sucking gum off his fingers with an oblivious level of rudeness that made Thomas’s pulse sputter. Pancake was licking the boardwalk.

“Enjoyin’ yourselves?” Thomas asked casually as he approached them.

Sybil nodded warmly, while Jimmy continued to look morose. “They won’t let me bring Pancake into the arcade,” Jimmy complained to Thomas when he was close enough to take a seat with them. He self-consciously perched himself on the edge of a coin-operated rocket ship to avoid soiling his trousers on the ground.

“We were going to try the pinball,” Sybil offered by way of explanation. “Jimmy wanted one of those prizes.”

“I’ll do it – if y’like,” Thomas offered almost automatically. His urge to show off his gaming prowess to Jimmy at any possible opportunity far outweighed any hint of subtly.

“Nah, that won’t be any fun,” Jimmy complained, still struggling with the bubblegum coating his fingers – something about which made Thomas yearn for a cigarette. “I wanted to get you somethin’ to commemorate our first real adventure,” Jimmy went on, clearly innocent of the conations that Thomas would have attached to any sort of gift-giving on Jimmy’s part. “It’s no good if you get it for _yourself_.”

“Well,” said Sybil, handing Thomas a rather unhelpful and knowing smile; “Why don’t we take a picture? For the _start_ of our next adventure!”

The suggestion was an instant hit with Jimmy, who scrambled to his knees as he went hunting through his pockets for his phone. “Good on ya, Sybil,” he grinned as he pulled it out and started fiddling with the camera function. “Everyone gather round. I’ve been so distracted the last day or so, I’ve forgotten to update me Instagram, so look sharp.”

Sybil was quick to jump behind Jimmy, pulling Pancake into the space between them. Thomas remained where he was, hesitant about such a frivolous routine. He was nervous about being dragged into such close quarters with Jimmy, even with Sybil there. But they were both looking at him expectantly, and Thomas felt under pressure. “I’m not one for photographs,” he tried to say feebly, which was more or less true. He had grown less fond of having unwanted attention on himself as of late.

“Oh, do give me that – let me,” said Sybil, snatching the phone out of Jimmy’s hand and made a shooing motion in the direction of Thomas and the bright pink rocket ship that framed his shoulders. Jimmy took the hint and bounded over to Thomas’s side, leaning on the rocket’s mechanical base so that he could throw an arm around Thomas’s waist. The sizzle of desire that burned through Thomas’s clothing beneath the band of Jimmy’s arm was almost unbearable, but was only more pronounced when he touched his head against Thomas’s side. Thomas sucked in a suffocating breath and held it even as Pancake loped over to them and snuggled up into the space between them, and Sybil crept round behind Thomas to hold the phone out in front of them.

“Now, all say _‘Click!’_ with the camera!” she ordered as she depressed the button and captured the moment. The result brought a delighted laugh to her lips and she busied herself with uploading it to Jimmy’s Instagram account with zest, chuckling to herself all the while.

“Y’know, it’s alright to smile once and a while,” Jimmy told Thomas, who was still slowly letting out the nervous air he’d trapped in his chest. Thomas glanced down to find Jimmy’s face angled directly up at his, a serene, easy mood touching his lips. “It’s nice,” he murmured softly, his words nearly crushed by the arcade’s carnival music and the rush of the sea wind.

Something about the way he asked it was gentle enough to make Thomas hope, even as Sybil came back around to show Jimmy the results of her photo editing. She sidled between them with Jimmy’s phone, but Jimmy’s eyes remained on Thomas for just a few precious seconds before he turned his attention to her. A ghost of his expression wafted in the air even after he’d moved, haunting Thomas with an countenance that had almost been affectionate. _Just like a dream_ , Thomas hummed to himself as he tried to recapture the exact way Jimmy had been holding his lips, or the flutter of his eyelashes as he’d lingered on Thomas – the angle of his brow or the twirl of his hair.

There was almost nothing of that in the photograph though – or none that Thomas could see when he finally bent down to look. Sybil’s plump, Renaissance lips were stretched with laughter, and Pancake was licking Jimmy’s bare knee. And yet, even as Jimmy made a gross expression for the camera, his middle finger dragging down one lower eyelid, his other arm was still wrapped around Thomas’s waist, immortalized for all of Jimmy’s 361 Instagram followers to see. Thomas felt like the only thing missing in the picture was he, himself, who appeared more like a hole snipped out with crude scissors than someone who belonged with such playful people. His face was stony, almost frightened.

Beneath the picture was a caption: _‘Thieves and murderers!’_

He lifted his chin to look at Jimmy, who seemed to be in the process of adding Sybil to his network of online friends. It was then that it struck him that regardless of what was to be between them, that radiant boy had already told him what he wanted.

Thomas smiled.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Glad you guys seem to be enjoying this one. 
> 
> Though I might be dead before next week. I'm dying.


	6. Mardy Bum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe he's off with Pancake, wondering the same thing...."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii, glad you're back for this week's chapter. It's only been vaguely edited, so I hope there aren't too many typos. Enjoy!

 

 

Perhaps because they were forced to share the backseat with all the luggage, Pancake and Sybil had quickly grown very fond of one another. In a funny way, Thomas almost resented the unhindered affection Pancake lavished upon Sybil as he stretched across her lap and allowed her to cuddle and rub and stroke him without complaint. Thomas had tried to pet Pancake once after noticing this developing bond, but he was met with more of the same nips and barks that had become typical. It made him decidedly surly, though he couldn’t particularly reason why. _Don’t even like dogs_ , he would mutter to himself every now and then, though it only ever took a glance at Jimmy over in the driver’s seat to quickly banish the thought.

“Oh, for God’s fuckin’ sake,” Jimmy groaned as they motored away from the beach, the noontime sun splashing Jimmy’s cheek with merry golds and whites. He yanked down the sun visor as low over the windscreen as he could, though the direction of the sun managed to circumvent the effort. He moaned again, knocked the crown of his skull against his seat’s headrest as he complained, “Tell me someone in this goddamn car has got a pair of sunglasses. I’m goin’ blind over here.”

“All this stuff and you haven’t any sunglasses?” Sybil wondered from the back, absently running her fingers up and down the length of Pancake’s enormous body.

“I did,” said Jimmy with a little less edge, though he was still squinting over the steering wheel. “But I traded ‘em with the old sea for somethin’ better.” He blinked away from the road for the briefest of moments, seeking respite in the shadow cascading down Thomas’s shoulder.  

“I’m sure it was worth it,” said Sybil, poking her head between the two front seats, a pair of oversized ladies’ sunglasses perched on her palm. “Here,” she offered, and Jimmy grabbed them and flicked them onto his face without even a cursory examination. The blue rhinestones set in their gold frames glittered brightly around the tinted lenses.

“Very stylish,” Sybil laughed as she flopped back to the second row, already back to fluffing Pancake’s flopping ears.

“ _Am_ I stylish?” Jimmy asked, directing the question to Thomas with another precarious glance away from the road. His carefully manicured eyebrows just crested the top of the sparkling frames, which looked absolutely ridiculous on Jimmy’s squarish face. He puckered his lips and kissed the air between them.

Thomas’s skin seared more hotly than the sun beating through the Pinto as Jimmy devolved into bright laughter. “I wouldn’t know anythin’ about that,” Thomas mumbled, finding supreme interest in his pale knuckles, which were white with the grip he held on the car door.

“Then snap a picture for us, Thomas,” he commanded between chuckles, flapping a stray hand at his phone on the console between them. “I wanna see how pretty I am.” His eyelashes fluttered beneath the purple-toned lenses.

“You mean you want the internet to see,” Sybil giggled from behind. “Though they _are_ quite flattering.”

“So what if I do, ey?” Jimmy agreed with another raucous laugh, banging the heel of one hand against the wheel as he cackled. “I like people to know I’m a redblooded, fun-lovin’ lad.” He bent his head back in Thomas’s direction with another playful kiss at the sunbeams, which he held while he waited for Thomas to follow through on his request.

“I don’t think there’s any disputin’ that,” Thomas sighed as he picked up the phone, his heart bumping irregularly at the ideas such words flooded through his brain.

“It’s 1924,” Jimmy said trivially, even though Thomas was already inputting the code. More tempting notifications blazed across the screen as Thomas opened Instagram and held the camera up with a shuddering hand, though the quiver was in his wrist, not with the shudder of the Pinto’s rickety engine. There was no avoiding Instagram’s advertisement of the fact that their last photo on the boardwalk had been a big hit, and had already attained a reasonable number of accolades since it had been posted. Thomas decided it would be better for his health to ignore them.

He toggled with the zoom, trying to frame Jimmy’s face just right, though his unsteady fingers kept dallying over the proximity with which the lens could capture the nuances of Jimmy’s Botticelli mouth. Death at the hands of Jimmy’s inattention to the road seemed worth it if he could just absorb the little pinch at the corners of his lips a moment longer, or the slight plumpness his upper lip held over the lower one, and what it might be like to feel it sliding across his own chin with sensual lethargy.

“Alright, make it count,” said Thomas with a swallow, finally steeling himself to be blown away by a dazzling smile as he snapped the picture. He wasn’t disappointed.

Pancake, however, wasn’t so easily fooled. Stuffing his muzzle between the two front seats, he shoved his nose against the back of Thomas’s hand, startling him with its cold wetness. “Bloody hell,” Thomas swore, nearly flinging Jimmy’s phone clear out the window in surprise. “You really are a spoilt brat, aren’t you,” Thomas finally built up the nerve to say.

“Oh, he probably just wants to see,” Sybil justified, clearly not aware of the sort of rivalry that broiled between Thomas and the St. Bernard. She plucked the phone out of Thomas’s hand and pulled Pancake back into the depths of suitcases and bags to survey Thomas’s work. “Quite nice, really,” she assured Thomas and Jimmy from the back as she messed with the image’s settings. “Especially with a little editing and – ta-da! Very much so.”

She leaned forward again to display her handiwork, though only Thomas was able to get a proper look at it with Jimmy’s attention back where it ought to be. “Look,” she enthused, pointing a manicured nail at the screen, where Thomas was chilled to notice the filter had emphasized his own faint outline reflected in those ridiculous sunglasses. He wet his lips, wondering if it meant Jimmy had been watching him from behind the darkened shades – and what might have been hidden behind blue eyes if so.

Sybil left Thomas to stew over the wisps of what any of it might have meant, while she returned to her backseat throne to snuggle with Pancake and upload the image to Jimmy’s Instagram. Pancake was making himself very involved in the process, but Sybil just seemed to find his nosiness cute, and continued to laugh as she typed in a caption ( _“Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”_ ) and hit send.

“Oh!” she exclaimed mere seconds later. “Jimmy, it’s like you’ve got groupies waiting for your every moment. You’ve already got a comment!” She cleared her throat and read aloud with theatric exaggeration: “‘Looks like you’re not just a two-man posse anymore, JJ.’” Perpetually smiling, Sybil asked, “Who’s that, _JJ_?” She seemed to find the nickname beyond amusing, though Thomas wasn’t particularly keen to hear that someone he’d never heard of was close enough to Jimmy to even have one for him. Then the swirl of desire, the need to get Jimmy any way he could, clashed with an inner nub of completely irrational jealousy.

“Oh, that’s me mate from home,” Jimmy said, catching Sybil’s face in the rearview mirror. “I used to knock boots with his sister but – well, that’s another story. One that requires ale an’ whiskey.” He dipped the sunglasses low enough to give Thomas a wink, “Or somethin’ like it anyway.”

Thomas lost the ability to reason out what that might even remotely mean, and was stupidly tempted to clarify if this same person was the Alfred whose concern for Jimmy could be counted in the number of texts Thomas had stolen a glance at before. He was at least assuaged to know that it wasn’t Ivy calling Jimmy by any sort of pet name. And was he also allowed to call Jimmy ‘JJ’ as well?

“Oh, oh, another one!” Sybil interrupted, still entertained by Jimmy’s internet popularity. The fun died the moment she started to read it aloud, however, her voice stilted with confusion about what the tone of the words ought to be. “’Just who are all these people you’re suddenly with?’” Sybil recited slowly. She paused for a ponderous moment, and then deduced in a more personable tone, “Sounds a little complicated there, _JJ_.”

Thomas wasn’t sure he liked this particular game anymore, and was at least glad to hear that Pancake agreed with him – if the annoyed grumbles the dog was making were any sort of indication of his mood. He crushed his cricket bat against his chest beneath folded arms and glared straight ahead, careless of the damaging sun flashing in his irises.

“I’d really rather you didn’t perpetuate that one,” said Jimmy to Sybil with an oddly serious candor that belied his glitzy shades. The car fell to a moody silence that even Pancake seemed to respect.

They drove on like that for about ten kilometers before the heavy air was sliced through by a muffled ringtone. The sudden shuffling in the backseat suggested the beeping rendition of a Blondie song belonged to Sybil’s mobile, especially when she started trying to rearrange Pancake with herculean but futile efforts. She eventually had to slide her hand under his massive belly to grope around for her device, which she eventually produced with a triumphant cry.

“’Lo? Yes, yes, it’s me,” she said quietly, speaking as if she was unsure whether her call would be received well in the front seat. Neither Thomas or Jimmy showed any reaction, each too crushed by his own brooding, though Pancake was at least interested enough to lay his head on Sybil’s lap to listen. “Oh, you’ll never believe it, but I’m actually on my way! It’s true! I’ll be there!”

Glancing back at Sybil in the rearview mirror, Thomas couldn’t help the cloud of discontent that fell over him to see her so carefree. She might have regaled him with talk about how she coveted the freedom he and Jimmy seemed to have, but her impression had been sorely mistaken. She sounded like a person who didn’t let life hold her down, as opposed to Thomas, who constantly felt the weight of the world choking down on him – even when he ran unfettered. Things that made other people happy usually just made Thomas bleed until he eventually told himself he enjoyed the sting. She even knew how to laugh, which Thomas envied incredibly.

“I told you I’d be there, and I meant it, so don’t worry about Papa or anything else, because I haven’t told him a word. We should be in London by the week, I think. We’re making some stops along the way. At least over in Oxford, apparently,” Sybil went on as if the other two weren’t even there. She twirled a clump of Pancake’s fur and leaned back against Jimmy’s overloaded duffel, which was still exploding with clothing (despite Thomas’s best efforts otherwise). “Oh, who’s we? Some new friends I’ve made. I know, I know – hitching a ride. It’s very exciting, isn’t it? They’re nice lads, don’t worry And I can mind myself if it turns out they’re not.” Sybil caught Thomas’s heavy eye in the rearview mirror and winked, the pure joy of which forced Thomas’s discontented frown elsewhere. A gleeful chuckle erupted from the back, which Pancake joined in on with a happy yip: “I don’t know, Rose. Do _you_ think Papa has guessed it?” More merriment and contented woofing from Pancake followed.

At this, Thomas couldn’t help but interrupt. “I thought you told your father you wanted to visit your sister,” he said, his brow crinkled with dour suspicion.

“Oh, oh, one moment, dear,” said Sybil, drawing her phone away from her mouth. “I certainly did, Thomas. I just didn’t explain him any of the details,” Sybil told him with a conspiratorial air, a secret which seemed to be shared by Jimmy and the sniggers escaping his mouth. “And it’s not _really_ a lie. Aren’t we visiting someone of yours in Oxford as well?”

The reminder was a sharp shock for Thomas, as his initial plans seemed to be in a constant state of flux since he’d first climbed into Jimmy’s car. “Yeah, well,” Thomas muttered, “We’ll try.”

“What’s _that_ mean?” Jimmy put in, flummoxed by Thomas’s shift in attitude about his destination.

“It’s complicated,” Thomas grumbled mostly to himself, while Sybil took up her phone chat once more. Jimmy kept throwing him concerted glances.

“We don’t have to stop,” Jimmy offered in an effort to be helpful, though his mouth was twisted into a strange frown. “No one’s particularly invested in Oxford anymore, seems like, and I don’t care either which way.”   

The hesitation Tom had expressed when Thomas had called him about his whereabouts quickly came to mind. Tom was the only person who knew the full story as to why Thomas had abruptly abandoned a scholarship at such a prestigious institution, and why the idea of Thomas going back – especially with a notion to visit Philip, who had been central to the entire fiasco – wasn’t a thoroughly thought-out one. But Philip had rare connections, and Thomas was desperate, which left him rather stuck on ideas.

“We’re goin’!” Thomas shouted with far more vitriol than he’d intended, which shocked both Jimmy and Sybil. A disappointing life had taught him to be resourceful, and he wasn’t about to abandon the practice just because he didn’t like his choices. Rarely, he ever did.   

“Well, la-dee-dah for you, Thomas. Ain’t it just grand to have your own chauffeur to start and stop wherever you bloody well fancy it,” Jimmy sneered, quick to flip into a rather nasty mood. Pancake started growling, and Sybil whispered a hushed goodbye to her friend in favor of trying to soothe the protective animal. “D’ya want Oxford or not? Tell me now, ‘cause if I have to ask again, I’ll kick your arse out the door without even the courtesy of pullin’ over, got it?”

“The world is a complicated place, Jimmy,” Thomas grumbled, speaking as if the rest of the world had simply drifted away. “Full of variables and unpredictability no one could ever plan for.” 

“Not everyone’s got to be as complicated as you,” Jimmy answered, and the words slung themselves through Thomas’s heart like a harpoon, embedded in the flesh and left to bleed a painful ooze of truth. Thomas was glad that Jimmy had those gaudy sunglasses on, which were at least a thin disguise for the terrible glower that was sure to be searing beneath the dark lenses. Left with the sinking sensation of their first disagreement—or at least, something that felt just as unpleasant as one – Thomas slid low in his seat and simply mumbled, “Oxford.”

“ _Okay_ , then. Oxford it is,” Jimmy said shortly, which abated Pancake’s annoyance, though not the flagellant glare he kept pressed on Thomas’s back. Jimmy, meanwhile, then reached for the radio dial like it was a command for the rest of them to keep quiet.   

_“Then I get that night fever, night fever – we know how to do it –“_

A surge of white noise followed the radio needle as Jimmy blindly twisted it to another station in search of something to fit his mood – which was another mystery worth adding to Thomas’s list.

“—parishioners still and mystified by the shocking events earlier this—“

Another squeal of irritated feedback muffled the Pinto’s speakers, and then:

“ _She’s not the one comin’ back for you, she’s not the one comin’ back for you! If I fall back down, you’re gonna help—“_

There was agitation in Jimmy’s movements, the rotation of his wrist almost too extreme to finesse a precise station. With a bit of blind arrogance, Thomas decided to put a stop for it and reached for the dial to perhaps calm Jimmy’s frenzy. The brief moment where their fingers danced across the radio console sent Jimmy’s hand skittering away, while Thomas’s lingered against the knob, his very skin tingling with whatever magic residue seemed to adhere to him at every touch. He knit himself into a cocoon of indifference as he took over control of the soundwaves, careful to keep whatever he chose light. He hated that Jimmy had been upset with him, even if it was well deserved. Of all the terrible feelings in the world, that had to be his least favorite.

“ _I got fire in my mind, I got higher in my walk, and I’m glowin’ in the dark!”_ The Beegees came humming back for the briefest of moments, which was enough to get Sybil bobbing her head in the backseat – a start, as far as Thomas was concerned. He kept surfing. 

_“Now then, mardy bum, I see your frown,_  
_And it’s like lookin’ down the barrel of a gun_  
_And it goes off –  
_ _And out come all these words!”_

Thomas let go of the dial, finding the tune appropriate and an acceptable flavor of home. “One of the only two bands that seem to exist on the radios in _Corrie_ ,” he said in what was probably a poor attempt at observational humor. The unexpectedness of Sybil’s amusement loosened his tight chest just a bit, unravelling only when he noticed Jimmy shift back into his usually smug persona. That shit-eating grin of his did unholy things to Thomas’s innards. “Put a proper Manchester group in there – Stone Roses or the like,” unable to silence the strong opinion.

“Wouldn’t have taken you for a _Coronation Street_ junkie, neither,” Jimmy commented with a rather amused tilt to his chin. “But I s’pose I’m just learnin’ lots about you I wouldn’t’ve guessed, too.”

“Half the country’s a _Corrie_ junkie,” Sybil piped up from the back in a show of casual defense.

“Oh, God, some credit, _please_ ,” Thomas held up a careless hand. “It’s not all me own faut. My sister’s addicted to it like what happens on that street is more important than real life.” He took a pause to consider, and with an acquiescent rock of his head, touching one ear to a shoulder, and then again with the other. “Though I s’pose I can’t blame her, come to it.”

“Is it like home?” Sybil asked, probably basing her question on the thickness of his Mancunian accent. “D’ya maybe just feel a touch of nostalgia?”

“What, you mean all them twitchin’ curtains and nosy neighbors always lookin’ in? No, thank you,” Thomas derided as stark imprints of his old neighborhood began to force their way into his head. He might have had a close ally in Tom, but it was still difficult to escape the scrutiny of an entire community of which his religious father was a respected member. Even despite Tom’s ineffable charm for the ladies, the gossip that perverted their friendship was almost too much for Thomas to bear. It only got worse as he got older, and his own reputation became more notorious. He shuddered uncontrollably, like something disgusting had suddenly coated his skin; “That sort of buggery is exactly what I’m tryin’ to leave behind, frankly.”

Surprisingly, it was Jimmy who had the next curiosity: “You’ve got a sister?”  

“In name only. She’s me father’s daughter more’n I were ever his son,” Thomas was quick to say, less than enthused that the spotlight had been dragged onto him in such a way. “She’s got a friend who was nicer to me than she ever were, though. And she weren’t one for _Coronation Street_ , neither – praise God.”

“Well, I’m nice, I promise,” Sybil huffed, confirming her affinity for the nation’s favorite soap opera. Pancake gave her a resounding yip of encouragement.

“Pancake has terrible taste in telly,” Jimmy confided in Thomas with a breed of levity that instantly cleared off all the black clouds that had started to gather between them. A smile broke Thomas’s pouting lips and brought a rather pleasant laugh rolling from the depths of his belly.

“You boys are something else,” Sybil said, and then left them to their front seat deliberations, while she and Pancake got cuddly in the back. It seemed she need the St. Bernard’s help in some very important texting. And, of course, an obligatory selfie to commemorate her newest friendship.

_“London or bust!”_

 

\--

 

Inevitably, the trembling English clouds grew thick enough to burst, dousing the Pinto in a violent monsoon that made it almost impossible to see an inch further than the dodgy flicker of its headlamps. Jimmy didn’t drive much slower than he’d been going before, which was a harrowing experience for everyone else trapped in the vehicle. But when the weather started to affect the gum-stuck petrol leak, Jimmy at least had the sense to pull over beneath an overpass, where it still only reasonably damp and the damage could be surveyed. Thomas immediately shoved the car door open with his foot, unable to clear the raging river of mud water that slicked road as he exited the Pinto. He wanted to check on the status of the gas tank, remembering that all of Tom’s quick-fixes were easily dissolved by any wet weather. To his chagrin, when he rounded the back of the car, there was already a telltale pool of petrol slick dribbling beneath the undercarriage.

“We’ll have to wait it out before I can patch it up again,” he announced to Jimmy as he also got out, curious to see what had sent Thomas so manically into the downpour.

Jimmy didn’t seem particularly enthused by the idea, which was denoted by the heavy droop to his shoulders as he shuffled to Thomas’s side. “Do we really have to?” he lamented with a shiver. “It can’t be too far before there’s another petrol station, right? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe for a well-maintained car that isn’t bleeding oil every two feet,” Thomas deadpanned as he bent at the waist to survey the damage closer. The sticky pink residue of Jimmy’s chewed Bazooka was already stained with grease, barely hanging on as it was. The soap trick Tom had suggested as a backup definitely would have to wait for an environment that wouldn’t immediately wash it away, though Thomas didn’t see much point explaining that right then and there.

“Are you callin’ me car a piece of shit?” Jimmy accused with a touch of sass.

“I rather well am,” Thomas smoothly rejoined. He smirked to himself and then straightened to his full height, adding, “That’s not to say it’s not got character. You know, perhaps a bit like _you_.” The words came out before he even realized what he was saying, and he could have slapped himself for such idiocy if it weren’t for the fact that Jimmy didn’t’ seem to hear them the same way Thomas intended. Which was, quite frankly, a small miracle. He was still terrified of what sort of Jimmy he’d find himself facing if his secret perversions came wiggling out of hiding.

“I am quite a character, me,” Jimmy was preening, much to Thomas’s unending relief. A momentarily dodged bullet lost amid peacock feathers and ego. The charade was then stowed in favor of a rewarding comment, and Jimmy said, “But you’re right about one thing. This clunker certainly is a bloody piece of crap.”

“Where’d you even get it?” Thomas then had to know, distracting himself with the sticker that seemed to be keeping the tail bumper attached to the rear of the car. “It’s notoriously horrible. And _American_.”

“Well, I’ll admit I used to drive a nice little British coup,” Jimmy told him, gently patting the Pinto’s roof. “But I like money more’n wheels, so I sold it. It’s much less pretentious, wouldn’t you say?”

“I s’pose it depends on your definition of that,” Thomas said slowly, not certain he wanted to get into a conversation about money – or superficiality, for that matter. Jimmy still had yet to ask him for his share at the bed and breakfast, and he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a completely free ride, even if his own funds were a bit on the tight side. _Nothin’s ever free,_ he reminded himself stodgily; _Not even a bankrolled coup._ There was more to that story, he could tell, but if patience was a virtue, then Thomas was a goddamn saint: he’d waited far longer for much less.

By then, Sybil had negotiated sliding one of the front seats forward so that she and Pancake could stumble outside and join the rest of the gang. They all fanned around the dripping petrol tank, staring at it like their combined glares would fix the problem before the rain cleared off. It didn’t work very well.

“Well, we’re goin’ to have to _hope_ there’s a petrol station close,” Thomas eventually assessed, a hand on each hip. “’Cause it looks like we’ll be pushin’ it through this mess if that last little drop is all your rottin’ tank’s got left, Jimmy.”

“We’re not pushin’ it anywhere – that’s stupid,” Jimmy decided flatly, though he was clearly bothered by the situation. This pitfall had been an eventuality for Jimmy, but the sudden downpour certainly didn’t help things out. “One of us is goin’ to have to suck it up and take the walk,” he eventually concluded with another sigh. His agitation seemed to have petered into anxiety, which came out as he batted his hands at Pancake: “Don’t _lick_ that, big boy! Not everythin’ is food!” he fretted as the St. Bernard crouched down and tried to offer some help of his own.  

“Pancake and I can guard the car while you and Thomas search out a refill can,” Sybil suggested, reaching out to offer a friendly hand to the dog. Pancake loped over to sniff her fingers, licked them, and then decided he preferred the comfort of Jimmy’s particular smell instead. He ran back to Jimmy to shove his nose into his crotch, and Thomas had to force himself not to look: certainly dogs had their proclivities, but that didn’t do much for saving Thomas from his own desire to smell Jimmy on his skin.

“Yeah, I s’pose we might do,” said Jimmy, peering out into the slashing rain, which was only slightly less blustery than it had been earlier. He pushed Pancake’s face away from his thighs with futile success as he gave Thomas a quick grin: “The road’ll be perilous, and it’s dangerous to go alone.”

Thomas was lost thinking about how the clean rain would enunciate Jimmy’s musk, while Jimmy was back at the Pinto, his arse hanging out the driver’s door as he rummaged through the back in search of something. Pancake had followed him, nipping at the denim that crinkled around Jimmy’s bent hip in protest. The sound of the dog’s barking drew Thomas back to the present moment, his glare quick to seek out the complaining animal, who didn’t at all seem pleased with Jimmy’s arrangement.

“Come on, Pancake, go keep Sybil company,” Jimmy’s disembodied voice echoed from inside the Pinto. It’s leaned heavily beneath his weight on its poor suspension. “Daddy just wants to take a little walk to clear his head.”

“You’ll love playing fetch with me, boy. I promise. I’m very good,” Sybil offered, though she was handing Thomas a very peculiar sort of half-grin as she spoke. “You’ll barely miss them.”

The series of woofs that Pancake answered her with denoted otherwise. Thomas pursed his lips with a shrug, desperately hoping he was giving off an air of indifference – nevermind that he’d have happily gone tearing through a hurricane if it meant having some time alone with Jimmy. There was a delicate balance to uphold, much as he hated to admit it, and pushing Pancake out was certainly not going to win him any favors from Jimmy – that much he was certain.

“Fine, fine, you great, clingy lout,” Jimmy huffed as he dragged himself out of the car, a giant umbrella in one hand and a saffron green mac clutched in the other. Pancake instantly flipped around and bounded back over to his master with far more exuberance than he’d been displaying before. Jimmy shoved his arms into the green mackintosh and dropped the umbrella against the side of the Pinto with a denting thud, while Pancake sat on his haunches with deceptive obedience. The St. Bernard’s tail swiped madly across the muddy tarmac as Jimmy started to dig through the pockets of his coat, waiting eagerly for Jimmy to produce another saffron bundle of rubber. Thomas’s hands clenched into red-knuckled fists when Jimmy quickly shook it out into the form of slightly smaller, doggie-sized mac.

“Can’t have you smellin’ like a monkey’s tit at least. You were bad enough rollin’ about in the ocean,” Jimmy muttered as he wrapped his pleased dog in his rain gear, fussing over Velcro straps and the little green hood that snapped around Pancake’s scruffy neck. Sybil cooed in adoration, while Thomas resisted the urge to be sick. At least they didn’t have coordinating wellies too: it would have been too much.

“Well, hopefully we won’t get flooded away,” said Jimmy as he picked up his umbrella and popped it open to reveal a canopy of hippos that were all entwined around one another in a rather suggestive array. He gave Sybil a nod, saying, “You’ve got me mobile number now, so just give us a ring if we’re not back in, say, an hour or somethin’.” Then he started off down the road and into the rain, whistling for Pancake to follow after him. Thomas stared until their bright green shapes became muddy in the sloshing downpour.

“Looks like that didn’t go to plan,” Sybil commented once they were alone. She leaned back on the Pinto’s tail, her jean-clad legs stretched out in front of her. Her black curls had started to frizz up in the humid dampness, though it didn’t detract much from her beauty.

“For _whom_ , exactly?” Thomas muttered with a downcast look over the side of his cheek.  

“Who do you think?” Sybil said casting Thomas an expectant eye. When he said nothing, she sighed and leaned back to stare at the infrastructure of the overpass that sheltered them above. The splash and squeal of the occasional passing car cutting through the rain fell down like thunder from overhead. “How long have you known Jimmy? I’d’ve thought Pancake had better intuition about you.”

“He’s got more than what’s good for him,” Thomas told the tips of his loafers, which were becoming hopelessly unkempt after being forced through such unsuitable climates. “I’ve only known Jimmy a moment, but it seems like that’s all it’ll ever be with the way that dog carries on. Like a bloody security detail, that one is.”

“Funny, I could’ve sworn you two have known each other ages. I suppose Pancake just needs a little time to get used to you in that case,” Sybil encouraged, unwittingly repeating the same assurances Jimmy had been trying to use on Thomas since their first meeting. “My sisters and I all grew up around dogs because of Papa. They all have their own little ways about humans. We had this one – Pharaoh was his name – he absolutely couldn’t stand my middle sister for a time. Turns out it was because they both liked the same spot on the same couch.”

“I don’t think Pancake is particularly complicated on that score,” Thomas deadpanned with a quick glance at his companion. “He likes you just fine, and he knows you even less. All slouched out ‘cross the back with his head in your lap and your fingers all in Jimmy’s things. Not so with me. Like to bite me leg off if he could, more like.”

“Well, maybe it’s like the couch,” Sybil suggested, which left Thomas staring at her blankly. She waited for another squelching run of tires to speed by overhead before she clarified, “You both want the same spot.”

Thomas stared at Sybil with unblinking eyes, like he was trying to figure out if she was stupid. 

“You really are quite the pouter,” she laughed, unfazed by even Thomas’s most unsympathetic of expressions. When Thomas continued to glare, her smile only became cheekier. “Come, now. Only a fool wouldn’t see. It’s _Jimmy_ , of course.” 

  
Thomas suddenly felt as transparent as the rain cascading down on either side of the overpass, and only wished he could be washed away as easily. Sybil was bloated with amusement, like the very idea of his ridiculous affections for Jimmy were a hilarious joke. “Y-You don’t have to make fun of me,” Thomas grumbled, refusing to meet her eye. “It’s bad enough a bloody dog thinks I’m disgustin’ without you rubbin’ it in. I know what I am.”

Sybil’s mirth immediately quieted, replaced with a much more serious tone. She took stock of Thomas, examining him from head to toe like there was something more to pull out of his appearance. A certain kind of empathy transfigured her, though Thomas wasn’t sure he cared for the change in tone. He didn’t like people feeling sorry for him, even if they meant well. He hadn’t survived years of his father because other people _felt sorry_ for him. He hadn’t escaped his father because people felt goddamn, fucking _sorry_.

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not like we live in 1920. I don’t mind if you like lads or not,” she said softly, reaching out to touch Thomas’s forearm – though he was quick to snatch it away. “I was talking about how of course it’s hard – when you’re not sure, that is.”

“What’s there to be unsure about? He’s no nancy boy,” Thomas slurred under his breath. He dug his heels into the mud, leaning heavily onto the Pinto, which protested with a rusty creak. “And I sure ain’t spinnin’ round his head the same way he’s spinnin’ round mine.” Thomas spat, and then went desperately into his pockets for the cigarettes he’d been abstaining from since that morning. One of the few that hadn’t been salted by the ocean was pulled between his lips, jiggling as he cupped his lighter from the moistened breeze. It took four clicks before he managed to get the cigarette lit, which he puffed at like the nicotine was better than air.  

“How do you know what spins in and out of his head?” Sybil shrugged inconsequentially. She was watching Thomas smoke with mysterious, gypsy eyes, like she possessed the clairvoyance Thomas wished for. She tipped her nose upwards, smirking, “Maybe he’s off with Pancake, wondering just the same.”  

“You’ve got a cloudy sense of humor,” Thomas grumbled around his cigarette, the fingers that pinched it against his lips muffling his voice against the needling rain. Even if there was the barest inkling of truth in what Sybil was suggesting, Jimmy certainly wasn’t strangled with the same tourniquet and shot straight through the arm with such addled desire. All that Jimmy was had come on too fast for Thomas to catch, laughing through his veins as Thomas was left to slowly die. It was like he’d forgotten to take the little pills that silenced the sex and all his disastrous little complications.

With only the slowly abating rain to fill the silence, they were quiet for the length of time it took Thomas to smoke about half his cigarette – an enjoyment which was cut short when a large droplet splattered it from above and rendered it to a soaked clump of tobacco and rolling paper between his fingers. With a growl he flung it to the ground and stomped on it, a display to which Sybil only had to say: “I think he likes you.”

“Yeah, well, not really,” Thomas groused as he kicked the remains of his disappointing cigarette down the side of the road. “Not the way I’d prefer, anyway.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” Sybil replied with a contrary tilt to her chin.

“Then don’t hold your breath,” Thomas snapped rudely, already frustrated by needs he knew would never come to fruition, regardless of Sybil’s good intentions. I’m not the right flavor.”

“Maybe he’s a man of varied tastes,” Sybil pointed out.

“Maybe he’s the bloody Queen of England, too,” Thomas snapped, his hot temper flaring up again. He didn’t like being toyed with.

“You’d still be kissing his feet either way,” Sybil said with a coy smile, which somehow both irritated and charmed Thomas all at once. It seemed it was impossible to stay angry with Sybil for more than a minute.

“He’s got a girlfriend”, Thomas informed her dully, trying to drive his sorrow home, but she only shrugged, like the detail was meaningless. Thomas frowned at her optimism, wishing he could so easily believe in magic at the click of a finger. He’d gotten his hopes up before with far less questionable boys in the past, and still always ending up choosing the problematic ones without fail. He wasn’t going to go charging quite so blindly this time – for what that was worth, anyway.  

“Did you ever think that maybe Pancake’s worries haven’t got anything to do with you?” Sybil asked after another lengthy quiet. She was peering into the misty drizzle, which was nowhere near as violent as it had been when they’d pulled over. Just in the distance, two bright green cutouts indicated the approach of Jimmy and Pancake from further down the motorway, and she lifted a dainty hand to wave at them with the clink of a crystal bracelet.

“I don’t see what _else_ it could possibly be,” Thomas answered tersely. “The bloody mutt takes me for a threat. I s’pose it’s not wrong. How could anyone –” He knifed his own sentence short, horrified that he’d nearly confessed to Sybil that his feelings for Jimmy had manifested into far more than a passing fancy. Even just a little slap and tickle would probably only make it that much worse if all he ever got to have was a taste of something that was rapidly becoming much, much more.   

Inconsequentially, Sybil tossed her shoulders again, and Thomas could only stare, for the first time feeling like he was the one who wasn’t keeping up. Jimmy and Pancake were drawing ever closer, now near enough to make out the pattern on Jimmy’s umbrella, and for the plastic-wrapped gas can he toted to stand out against the green of his mac. It didn’t seem like the umbrella or the rain gear had done much to keep either one dry, despite the success of the mission. 

“Maybe _you’re_ not the one who’s being kept away,” Sybil said cryptically, drawing out her words long enough to make Thomas nervous that Jimmy would hear as he grew ever closer. Then she lifted herself off the Pinto and strode towards Jimmy to greet him with a hug, careless of the water beading against his raincoat or dripping from his hair. At her feet, Pancake shook out his fur, shooting bullets of rain in every direction and upsetting his own little coat, while Thomas stared at the dog, and wondered.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! Hope you're on board with Sybil having a part in all this. I promise you'll see it all come together by the end!! There's... REASONS! I also apologize for the meta mention of Corrie, but Thomas/RJC makes it so hard for me to not make a little joke out of it when he's not stuck in the 20s, hehe. 
> 
> Songs that flashed across the airwaves today were the Beegees, 'Night Fever,' Rancid, 'Fall Back Down,' and the Arctic Monkeys awesome old tune off their first record, 'Mardy Bum,' which is also the chapter title (Man, I'm old; I remember when that was their only damn album). I laugh because truly it's only the Kooks and like the first to AC albums I ever hear on Corrie. Though both are wonderful groups. Ughh, especially the Monkeys. Okay. Stopping now. Ugh. 
> 
> In other news for those of you who liked 'Sittin' On A Fence', I'm not sure how soon, but I'll be pulling it off the internet at some point this summer because I have plans to self-publish it as an original. I'll keep everyone posted, but if you'd like an illustrated version for your bookshelf instead of words on a screen, keep and eye out for the Kickstarter! 
> 
> Speaking of art, I'm also taking commissions right now, so feel free to PM me on Tumblr or whathaveyou. 
> 
> Whew, so many things to say! Thanks again!


	7. Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang does another stop-over, this time at a countryside inn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any errors. I haven't really gotten anyone to properly beta-read this story. Also sorry for its lateness; stupid IRL stuff, haha. And the fact I'm trying to be a productive adult who doesn't write only fanfiction until death. I wish, haha.

  


“I have to say, I’m quite impressed. Thomas. I could have sworn our trip had come to a premature halt back there, if I’m honest,” Sybil was saying, an elbow resting on either front seat as she leaned between Thomas and Jimmy. The rain had cleared off and left a damp, sparkling gray in its wake, allowing Thomas to patch up the petrol tank with both the soap and a bit of Bazooka for good measure, refill it, and then get them back on the road in a rather efficient manner. The gunning of the engine back to its usual putter had earned a pleased whoop of joy from Jimmy and a revving in Thomas’s chest that had fired like a combusting piston between his ribs.

“The credit belongs to me friend, Tom. He’s the mechanic – I just happened to be about,” Thomas hummed. He was busy watching the road’s center line blur in and out of focus as he stared out the window, an ear pressed against the inside of his palm. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in talking to Sybil, but the rain had made him broody, and she was obstructing his direct view of Jimmy, which only made him more morose. At the same time, he sort of resented the reemerging sun, like the miserable rain was more of a comfort than a technicolor world he couldn’t appreciate. A monochrome storm more aptly matched the deep depression that typically drove his highs. If there was at least one relief in the shifting weather, at least the walk in the rain had tuckered Pancake out enough to inspire a nap once he’d got back into the car, allowing Thomas, who was just as exhausted, a break from the dog’s overprotective nature.

“I don’t know. You seemed to have a pretty good idea of what you were doing,” Sybil commended Thomas, though she was addressing Jimmy’s side of the car. “Could be a mechanic yourself, I wager. Good, careful hands and all.”

“S’pose it’s to be expected when you do most of your growin’ up round a mechanic’s family,” Thomas said to the zooming scenery. A few stray droplets leftover from the storm flicked through the open window, forcing him to squint into the yellowing horizon. They’d lost a lot of the day. “But we’ll be givin’ Tom a ring if anythin’ else pops out of joint on this old rust bucket. Out of my league at that stage,” he informed them matter-of-factly, though after a brief, contemplative pause, Thomas then added: “Though I’d picked up enough to toy round with clocks and such now and then. I guess it’s not completely daft.”

“Still better’n bein’ a vicar, right?” Jimmy piped up, and Thomas’s neck nearly snapped at the speed he pivoted his attention from the road. The darkhaired cricketer was frankly surprised that Jimmy even _remembered_ that conversation, certain that it had been smothered by whatever dreams had visited Jimmy that night. A nervous finger touched the chain around his neck.

“I can’t see you as a vicar,” Sybil decided as she slid into the back to lay an arm across Pancake’s slumbering mass, which still occupied most of the bench despite being curled up in a more compact position than his usual sprawl. She idly pet the sleeping dog and pulled out her phone to answer a text, leaving Thomas and Jimmy to chat on their own. She seemed to sense that the conversation had drifted to a topic that she wasn’t a part of.

“I wanted to be in medicine when I were younger,” Thomas told Jimmy, desperate to kill any implication that there was an ounce of his father (or anything to do with him) to be found. “I even studied it at uni for a time.”  

“Studied?” Jimmy wondered, quick to pick up on the nuance in Thomas’s diction. “You say it like you stopped.”

“It didn’t quite work out the way I planned,” Thomas confirmed with a moody sigh, his gaze wandering back out the window. He wished he had nicer things to tell Jimmy about himself, hating the way it made the mood as heavy as the corners of his mouth whenever he divulged something personal. “Ended up back in Manchester, me. Finished up me schoolin’ from home, got me a business degree. Which I guess is almost as good.” His tone indicated it was anything but.

If Thomas hadn’t been so drudgingly hypnotized by the roadway outside the Pinto, he might have noticed the glance Jimmy gave him, which was low and made the rhinestone sunglasses he still wore slide down his angular nose. “You’re a bit soft, aren’t you,” Jimmy said in a way that was difficult to discern as complimentary or mordant.

“Ey?” Thomas was somewhere between caustic and a sigh.

“You, all dark and mysterious,” Jimmy elaborated as he pushed the sunglasses back up to the bridge of his nose. He was leaning a bit over the steering wheel, guiding it with his wrists as he peered into the dipping sun. “But you want to take care of people. Be a help and that. Soft.”

He gave Jimmy a short, sharp look, his brow crinkle with distress, grumbling, “Soft is what me dad used to say about it, too.”

Somehow, despite the wind roaring through the open windows, the sputtering radio and Pancake’s snoring, Jimmy heard it. “I didn’t mean it like it were an _insult_ ,” he yelped, abruptly slamming on the brakes with such suddenness, the tires squealed across the tarmac and everyone inside lurched dangerously forward. Pancake snapped to wakefulness with a startled bark like they were suddenly under attack. Jimmy twisted in his seat, leaning an elbow on the steering wheel and the other against his headrest, somehow managing to come off as deadly serious even as the rouging sun glinted in Sybil’s frilly sunglasses and painted his cheeks. “Meant that it’s nice, really,” he went on, his peaked eyebrows dipping beneath the rhinestone frames of the sunglasses; “What it is, right – is that you like to come off like you’re this big, tough bloke – really cool and indifferent and all – but you’re not. Not underneath it all, yeah?”

Thomas stared at Jimmy like he was drifting through the middle of a dream, his feet stepping flat across the air and his head spinning on the floor. He could have assumed the worst if he wanted – and perhaps a part of him yearned to, because that was what he was used to handling, even if it made his thoughts dark. But then with the flecks of sunlight in Jimmy’s blond hair and the long shape of his lips, like he was offended by the very idea of someone trying to fool him with a charade of any kind, Thomas couldn’t continue to pretend.

“You’ve got to learn to make do,” he began with a calm that matched the pastel glow of the spreading sunset. “Nowt were ever good enough for me dad. Not wantin’ to be a medic, not datin’ a law student, not goin’ to Oxford or bein’ the best bloody cricketer they had for three league championships – not a bit of it!” As his passion grew with the crescendo of his voice, his hands tightened around the handle of the bat that was perpetually locked in his grip, the tape around its handle rubbing a burn into his skin as his hands twisted around it. “It didn’t even please him when I came scurryin’ home after all that went to shit, too – so _his_ fingers never had to bleed whenever he had to talk about why his son never stayed on to properly finish out school,” Thomas spat, his hatred unable to be stuffed in the space of his travelling case any longer. “Me whole life, balancin’ on quicksand, and for what? To be told I’m too soft, too diappointin’, but never bloody _enough_.”

“What a cock. You should’ve stuck up for yourself, nevermind what he wanted,” Jimmy said, his mouth twisted with flabbergasted disgust, though whatever was flashing through his eyes was masked by his dark glasses. “You were good enough for ruddy _Oxford_ , but not for some Manc vicar in a strop? I wish _I_ were half that, me.” He sucked his teeth and flipped back around to face the wheel, gripping it almost as tightly as Thomas was his cricket bat: “Bloody hell, why’d you ever go?”

“We lost to Cambridge and I lost me scholarship, and that was that. I’m a poor Mersey lad – not the same cut as those rich sorts. Ain’t got the quid to paste over every failure,” said Thomas, also facing the windscreen. The headlights were pointed at the sunset, fading into the gloaming. “Though me dad acted like I’d disgraced the whole nation out of the World Cup or sommat with the way he’d bang on about it.” Suddenly, he flung himself against the back of his seat, squinting his eyes and clenching his teeth as he tapped the back of his skull against the headrest in frustration, like he was counting out the seconds to a minute that as long as a lifetime. “It’s whatever,” he finally managed to squeeze out, frozen, at length, with his chin poised up towards the roof of the car; “I couldn’t’ve stayed, scholarship or otherwise. I’d already been made a laughingstock from the Parks to the High Street.”

“How could anyone ever laugh at you?” Jimmy asked the shadows crossing the street ahead of them.

“Easily,” Thomas said tightly, to which Sybil almost immediately gasped, “You mustn’t say such horrible things about yourself, Thomas!”

Her attempt at consolation went unheard, as Thomas was already ensnared by an internal review of the public and hypocritical way Philip had cruelly blamed the Cambridge loss on Thomas’s ‘limp wrist,’ despite poor fielding on his own part – and the fact that Philip was once someone Thomas had trusted intimately. Casting ridicule on Thomas and lampooning his sexuality in front of the whole team had then bled out into the rest of the community in varying degrees of embarrassment, and Thomas has exited his time at Oxford in shame, all to the horror of his father, who was easily convinced that it was some lack in Thomas’s masculinity that had led to the defeat.

But Thomas told Jimmy none of this, still not quite comfortable with admitting his sexuality in such a forward way – even if Sybil had seen right through his efforts to disguise himself otherwise. There was an undue terror in Jimmy becoming uncomfortable with the easy deduction about Thomas’s feelings that came with the fact. Instead, he just summed the whole affair up by saying, “Cricket were the one thing me dad were ever proud of me for, and even that snuffed it.”

From the backseat, Sybil opened her mouth to say something kind, though her efforts at trying to soothe Thomas were rudely interrupted by the blare of a horn right at the Pinto’s tail bumper. She whipped around and, in a rather surprising and unladylike fashion, pointed two middle fingers at the impatient driver through the back window. She clearly considered dragging Thomas out of his doldrums plenty of justification for Jimmy’s emergency stop. Pancake woofed a supportive equivalent of rudeness, even if the only one whose ears suffered were Thomas’s. Sybil returned her attention to Thomas, gently saying, “Oh, Thomas, one loss isn’t the end of the world. I should know: cricket was also a way of life in my house.”

“It was the end of mine,” Thomas sighed, sinking lower in his seat, hoping the creaking springs would reach up and drag him through the undercarriage and deep into hell – where he belonged.

Another blaring, impatient horn beep repeated itself from behind, and Jimmy grudgingly shifted the Pinto back into motion. But just under the clunk of the engine, Jimmy could just be heard murmuring, “I’d never laugh at you.”

And Thomas’s ecstasy was caught spinning again, throwing all the torn pieces of himself into a breathless whirlwind.

As the impatient car behind them broke into the neighboring lane to pass by, Jimmy leaned on the horn like he was trying to shout over his own gentle admissions. “Who’s ready for a bite and a kip?” Jimmy asked the rest of them as he sped up, suddenly charged with an unofficial sort of challenge against the other vehicle. “Today took quite a bite outta me, anyway.”

Pancake barked in agreement, which Thomas thought was ridiculous considering that all the dog had to do was eat and nap all day anyway. But then Sybil was clapping her hands in delight, forcing Thomas to do nothing but throw in with the rest. He supposed putting a cap on the day’s frustrations wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and tried hard to stop wasting valuable time on his practiced negativity.

“You know, Thomas, my dad always said I had a cracking bowling arm,” Sybil said, bending between the front seats once more. Thomas was starting to get the impression that her interjections carried some sort of naïve, secret agenda – an idea that was sort of pleasant on its own, though he wasn’t sure it was worth her effort to try. She was still talking about cricket, nodding at Thomas’s bat, “I’d love to see you slam a few runs across a green. Can’t hurt to show off a bit, can it? Keep us all a bit fit?” She then tapped Jimmy on the shoulder, giving him a bit of wiggle; “This one and Pancake can field for us.”

“I don’t know the first thing about cricket,” Jimmy said as he poked the shades up onto his forehead in the rapidly approaching dark. “I can chip a football better than the lot of you, though – I can promise you that.”

“If Pancake can chase a ball, I’m sure you can figure it out as well,” Sybil told Jimmy with a coy smile that plumped one cheek fatter than the other. “And if that’s not exciting enough, I’m sure Thomas would be more than happy to give you some batting pointers,” she went on with a sly little chuckle that Thomas could have sworn had been calculated.

Jimmy’s eyes flicked across the car, dancing over Sybil’s face to rest upon Thomas’s, almost like there was a decision to be found there. “Fine. Maybe tomorrow morning, instead of our usual jog,” he agreed with a huff, “but if it turns out I ain’t any good at it, I get to destroy the lot of you at footy. I don’t do things to lose. Pancake’ll tell you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Jimmy,” Sybil said rather coolly; “No one here would dare dispute _that_.”

 

\--

 

Jimmy found another small bed and breakfast about ten more miles down the road. By that point, the sun had completely vanished beneath the horizon, sprinkling the countryside air with a vast array of stars that glinted silver against the cheery warmth emanating from the B&B’s windows. Jimmy pulled into the gravel car park and cut the engine, taking a few moments to survey the little house with a scrupulous eye. It wasn’t as charming as the one Sybil’s family owned, and instead bore a certain farmhouse kind of austere that might have been called quaint in a more utilitarian way. The distant mooing of a cow finalized the impression as the four of them clambered out of the Pinto and started gathering the things they’d need for the night. As he waited for Jimmy to gather his unwieldly collection of overnight bags, Thomas glanced around the car park, a little concerned that it seemed rather full for such a small establishment. He hoped they wouldn’t be turned away – at least for Sybil’s sake.

The inside of the house carried the same atmosphere as its outside, with uneven wooded floorboards, stucco walls and exposed rafters. The spindled furniture all looked handmade, and mostly bore a motif of scrolling hearts and wheat. A few guests were enjoying ales in a nearby common room, where a small fire was crackling away in the hearth, and another was happily tucking into a rather generous portion of steak and kidney. Thomas stared at the friendly scene like he was peering through a window, even as he stood in the B&B’s foyer. Jimmy stepped around his statuesque form to get to the front desk, while Sybil followed Pancake as he went sniffing into the common room to lick some new friends.

Only Jimmy’s voice had the power to call him out of such a trance, the sound of which drew Thomas out of the secret room he’d latched himself inside. He glanced up to find Jimmy summoning him to the front desk with a desperate roll of his hand, which he obeyed like he was no more than another one of Jimmy’s pets.

“What’s the trouble?” Thomas asked as he neared the desk, behind which sat a stout woman with orange curls that popped out from beneath a white kerchief.

“It’s not really _trouble_ ,” Jimmy said, though he kept giving the woman nervous glances between every other word. “It’s just that they’ve only got one room left, an’ I dunno if that’s goin’ to be alright for the lot of us.”

“Well, I don’t mind sharing,” said Thomas with a shrug, hoping that he was still keeping the wild things that every stopover carried into his head as tactful and secret as possible. “The one you ought to ask is Sybil.”

“If you don’t mind my sayin’,” the ginger woman behind the counter interjected, “but squeezing yourselves into two beds is worth eating my breakfast when you get up.”  

“One of us can take the floor,” Thomas suggested as Jimmy’s wandering eyes sought out Sybil. The words seemed foolish once they’d left his mouth and flapped uselessly against Jimmy’s back, like a tactless move executed in some lawless game that Thomas was playing by himself. With a lady now counted amongst them, of _course_ one of them would be sleeping on the floor, and he cursed any unwanted attention that might have been cast upon the enormous secret he was working so desperately to hide.

Frozen with a clumsy fear, the ebbing sensation that had overtaken Thomas upon first entering the B&B returned as Jimmy drifted away to catch Sybil’s attention. How was it that Thomas had trained himself so well to get by on his own, and yet, whenever Jimmy floated away, it left Thomas chilled to the bone. Chilled and hungry and roped by desire like he’d never known. Dark thoughts blew through him, whispering questions about whether he could confess himself to Jimmy by moonlight and kiss his mouth and his cock to pleasure quietly enough to let Sybil and Pancake sleep undisturbed. He was a goner, he already knew it – especially as Jimmy returned with Sybil and Pancake in tow: that smirk the blond wore could have commanded him to his knees with a mere twitch. He swore Jimmy’s feet never touched the earth as he moved, addling Thomas’s ability to slice reality from the dreams that glided behind his closed eyelids.

“I’m not fussy,” Sybil was saying as they returned to the stout woman at the counter to deliberate. “I’m certain we’ll find a way to survive the night.”

“So you’ll take it?” the woman pressed, pushing her guestbook towards Thomas goadingly. “You might as well. There’s not another bed and breakfast for at least another thirty miles, and I can assure you they haven’t got a cook in the kitchen that remotely compares with me own hands.”

“Really? Lotta bluster I’m hearin’,” Jimmy was saying as Thomas stared down at the empty page in the guest ledger, his wrist locked at his side like wielding a pen would prove difficult. He was happy to pay his share, but leaving his personal details all across the country wasn’t quite so appealing. He glanced over at Jimmy, hoping to pass the chore over to him, but the blond was too busy arguing with the stout cook about who made a better Yorkshire pudding: her, or Alfred, who was apparently the sous chef at the best French restaurant in his hometown. The name stuck out to Thomas immediately from the previous day’s sleuthing, making the ledger inconsequential. He halfheartedly started smearing his details into the appropriate spaces with almost indecipherable lettering as he eavesdropped, unsure why he cared so much about a person Jimmy had left behind, yet desperate to find out anyway.

“He’s not much to look at, but that boy could charm a boulder with some of those savories I’ve seen him do. Hell, he could charm even me like that!” Jimmy was telling the stout woman, jabbing a very decisive finger into the countertop until it bent at the first knuckle. “Me ex girl would fall for it every time. Sneaky bugger, that Alfred.”

The stout woman brayed with laughter, clearly entertained to hear an exemplary story about the power of good food. “I take it your ex girl weren’t very clever if she still kept coming back to you,” the woman said, leaning a meaty elbow against the counter. “Food for the soul is far superior to a feast for the eyes.” Then she chuckled to herself, giving Jimmy an appraising look that settled on the glitzy sunglasses that Jimmy had forgotten to disentangle from his blond fringe before leaving the Pinto; “Or maybe it were something else altogether, and I’ve got the wrong end of the stick here.”

The way the woman drawled out that last sentence made Thomas streak a full stop into a long dash that ran the length of the page and tore through the paper. That _something else_ had been plaguing Thomas since the moment he’d climbed into Jimmy’s car.

“Oh, it were somethin’ else, alright,” Jimmy said crisply, his expressive features heavy with disdain. “Young Michael Caine one day,” he said, drawing a flourished circle around his own visage Then he batted his hands away from himself, like he was pushing someone away in annoyance: “Male Julia Child the next,” he went on, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “The girl couldn’t make her mind up about the pair of us if her life depended on it, swear to Christ. And if old Alfred weren’t me mate, I’d have got over the whole thing a whole lot sooner.” He then threw Thomas a dazzling grin and a wink, unaware of how they nailed Thomas like a pair of arrows through the throat, and added, “The things we do for our bezzies, yeah?”

“The things we do in general,” was the phrase Thomas’s lips formed around parched words. He dropped the pen into the ledger’s gutter and closed it in embarrassment that anyone would catch sight of the lettering that looked like it had been done in a primary school workbook. Hopefully the landlady would just have Jimmy fill it out again in the morning when she realized what a trainwreck of a job he’d done, which would kill two birds with one stone.

“Right, well, for now, let’s get your little caravan all tucked in for the night,” the stout woman said as she reached beneath the counter to fish out a pair of keys for the room. She then took a few steps towards the common room and disrupted the easygoing mood with a shrill yell: “On the double, Andy! Daisy’ll still be there when you get back,” she shouted after a gangly young man with tightly curling fringe, who was concentrating very hard on a game of checkers with a dark-haired girl – presumably Daisy. It was hard to say if his poor achievement in the game had to do with a lack, in skill or the fact that he kept trying to catch Daisy’s eye as she concentrated on the board. His demeanor was that of someone who was constantly on the verge of saying something before everything around him inevitably interrupted him. This time, it was his employer’s demands that dragged him away from asking the one question of Daisy that seemed both obvious and abstract all at once.

“Right away, Mrs. Patmore,” Andy mumbled as he marched towards Thomas and the others, gathering up as many of their cases as he could possibly carry on his own before hurrying ahead to the stairs. He was a bumbling lad, perhaps new to the job, or someone hired because of ties to the family, but he seemed earnest – despite the indecipherable glances he kept casting back at them as they followed behind. As they ventured up the steps, Mrs. Patmore could be heard shooting commands at Daisy, who was apparently also in her employ.

“She’ll quiet down soon, don’t worry,” Andy told them as he stopped in front of a door on the first floor. He nervously put down the luggage so that he could fumble with the key and help them bring the rest of their belongings inside. The farmstead appeal continued into the room they were to be using for the night, outfitted with more hand-carved furnishings and needlepoint accents. Both of the double beds were dressed in beautiful quilts and cross-stitched throw pillows, matching knit afghans draped over the feet of each to complete the décor. A round, spiraling carpet cushioned the floor in the center of the room. Sybil sat down on the bed nearest the window, claiming it as her own, while Pancake bounded excitedly up onto the other. Thomas frittered, unsure which way to turn, especially with Andy still standing there like he was one of the room’s accoutrements.

Awkwardly, Andy coughed, and then said with an odd rush, “Is there anything else you might need? I can send Daisy up with the fixings for a nice bedroll. Some more pillows and comforters and the like, if – uhh – that’s something you’d – erm… want.”

Testing the mattress with a series of tiny bounces, Sybil started to say, “No need to trouble her with –”  

“Extra pillows would be lovely, thank you,” Thomas interrupted her, giving Andy a stern look that commanded authority over the situation. As he spoke, he started herding Andy towards the door, moving him along before anyone had a chance to stir up any more complications. He knew Sybil meant well, but he wanted Jimmy to be the person who dictated the arrangement, not some uncomfortable happenstance that would probably do more damage than good in the long run. Closing the door after practically shoving Andy into the hallway, Thomas leaned back against the wooden paneling and closed his eyes for an indulgent respite, wherein all the gentle, pleading, sensual ways Jimmy could invite him to bed swelled his mind. He was a goner either way.

He was interrupted by Sybil, who suddenly appeared before him with an armful of pajamas, some toiletries and a towel. “Jimmy said I could use the bath first,” she said, inclining her head towards the door that Thomas was still barricading with his slumped form. Quietly, he shifted out of the way to let her pass out into the hall, and then drifted back towards the beds, where Jimmy was on the floor, filling one of Pancake’s dishes with water from a bottle. Thomas watched him do it like the whole world turned on the curve of his figure.

Just as he had the night before, Jimmy went through his routine for Pancake as if he was by himself, while Thomas screamed a silent, inward plea at the top lungs to be allowed into that private universe with him. Thinking about it almost made him want to rip his clothes or punch through the wall, so tormented was he by how inconsequential Jimmy seemed to be about him. A glance at Pancake found the St. Bernard lying comfortably across the bed he’d saved for Jimmy, his large head resting between his white forepaws as he also surveyed Jimmy’s progress, and Thomas’s jealousy momentarily consumed him with another wave of spiteful resentment for the dog.

A knock at the door broke the spell, and all three of them perked to attention. Surprisingly, it was Jimmy who got up to answer the door, though the way he floated across the floor carried the same dreamlike quality that his Pancake ritual did. Left to observe Jimmy from behind yet again, Thomas found Jimmy was still devoid of his usual snap when he opened the door, wordlessly receiving the girl – Daisy, Thomas remembered her name was – who had come up with extra bedclothes.

“Is there anythin’ else?” Daisy asked from behind a mountain of blankets and pillows, almost as if she were afraid that Mrs. Patmore would scold her if there wasn’t some odd job or another to get done.

Much to Thomas’s unending ire, it seemed to be Daisy’s Yorkshire lilt that snapped Jimmy out of his sleepy daze. He took the armful of downy things from the girl and flipped into one of his more playful moods. “You could give that Andy a little wink and a kiss for us,” he teased with a grin Thomas didn’t even have to be looking over to see. “I think he’d like that.”

There was a momentary pause, through which Daisy seemed to be unraveling exactly what Jimmy meant. Then she said, “Should I tell him it’s from you?”

Daisy was obviously an innocent, which was clearly emphasized by the nature of her question, but it didn’t stop the spike of envy within Thomas from drilling itself straight through his brain until it was grinding painfully against the inside of his skull. He clenched his teeth, hating the way Jimmy seemed to have charm for every flower he passed, every breeze that tickled his ears, and was only vaguely soothed when he discovered that Pancake was just as displeased by the exchange. The giant dog practically ran to Jimmy’s side the moment the words had left the blond’s mouth, shoving his master aside roughly enough that Jimmy fumbled everything he was holding.

“ _Pancake_ ,” he scolded tersely as the St. Bernard shoved his nose into Daisy’s personal space, aggressively trying to sniff out the situation. “I were _tryin’_ to be a lad’s lad, help that poor Andy out. Calm _down_ , big boy,” he snapped at the dog in the first display of irritation Thomas had seen Jimmy handle his pet with. He bent to grab Pancake by the collar, jerking it dominantly as he scolded, “It’s a nowt to do with us, you hear me?” Then he glanced up at Daisy, apologizing rather sheepishly, “Sorry for the whole thing. He gets stroppy when he thinks I’m getting’ too friendly.” He spanked Pancake’s flank, adding, “Don’t you, you big, jealous fur ball?”

Thomas had to lean a heavy hand on the nearby bureau when he overheard that particular comment,

“S-So I shouldn’t kiss Andy,” Daisy tried to assess, her face cherry red.

“No, you definitely should – if y’like,” Jimmy said, still pulling on Pancake’s collar as the dog tried to make everything about Daisy his business. “That boy ain’t goin’ to help himself no matter how many times he loses at checkers with you. Some of us blokes are maybe a bit clumsy and shy, but others are particularly thick about it. Not all of us can be me, y’know.” Thomas was absolutely certain he was making all manner of enchanting faces at her, inwardly crumbling to think of the scrunch of Jimmy’s cheek whenever he winked.  

The hue of Daisy’s cheeks only intensified, and she balled her fists, asking, “Did he say somethin’ awkward? I’m sorry if he did. He gets the wrong end of the stick a lot.”

Thomas could read Jimmy’s expression purely on his body language: releasing Pancake’s collar, Jimmy straightened and threw his shoulders back in a show of recalibrating his grip on the bedclothes. “Nothin’ about _you_ , if that’s what you mean,” he countered with a slight choke to his tone. “I were just… takin’ notice of the pair of you before. Sorry if I were rude in sayin’ that.”

Based on the way the pink tone was spreading down Daisy’s neck and burning the tip of her nose, Thomas assessed that Daisy wasn’t used to being fancied – or to having other people call attention to it. Still, she somehow managed to counterbalance her feelings by saying to Jimmy, “No worries. Andy said sommat similar about you an’ your – ahh – friend, there. That’s what I meant about his missin’ the idea. He weren’t the most polite about it, if I’m honest.”

A gaping hole had opened up beneath Thomas’s feet, which threatened to send him plummeting to the center of the earth as the connotations of what Daisy had said became tangible. Like he had been wound upon a hairpin trigger, Thomas scrutinized Jimmy for any sort of hint that he was at least entertained by such a suggestion, but was only left hanging on a thread when Jimmy merely shrugged and laughed, like the whole exchange was a giant misunderstanding. “I s’pose we should just all mind out, eh?” he said vaguely, his meaning practically irrelevant. “Don’t want to go blindly round any corners, right?”

“I s’pose,” Daisy replied slowly, just as flummoxed by Jimmy’s quick shift in attitude as Thomas was. “Well, you lot have a good night,” she said hastily, offering Jimmy a weird variation of a bow before spinning on her heel and hurrying off down the hall. Pancake sent a parting bark after her, though Thomas couldn’t help but hear a heard a certain smugness to it as Jimmy nudged the door closed with his hip and returned to the middle of the room.  

“You really don’t have to sleep on the floor if you don’t want, y’know,” Jimmy said as he flung the pillows and blankets unceremoniously to the ground. “I don’t want you to feel put out or nothin’. There’s plenty of space.”

“Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, neither,” Thomas was quick to say, still leaning heavily on the bureau as Jimmy sat down on the bed Pancake had claimed.

“Why? Should I be worried?” Jimmy asked, barely paying attention to Thomas as he started to claw his shirt off, tugging the garment over his head and lobbing it onto the pile of pillows without much care. He started to unbutton his trousers, shimmying out of them as he laughed, “You ain’t goin’ to try kissin’ me in me sleep or somethin’ are you?”

Mentally, Thomas was already lost in a scenario where he gently roused Jimmy just around midnight with a gentle touch of the lips, and Jimmy sleepily awoke with a pleasured groan and kissed him back with an intensity that slowly intensified with each breath. He kept that fantasy locked in his head, and instead distracted himself with a bit of chipped paint on the bureau, which he picked at as he said inconsequentially, “That’s ridiculous.”

Jimmy was shaking his trousers off his ankles, sinfully perched on the edge of the bed in only his boxers. A rather hysterical laugh overtook him: “’Course. Just jokin’, me,” he chuckled, giving off the attitude like such a suggestion was practically insulting.

A painful swallow sunk down Thomas’s throat and pegged his heart as he said, “Yeah, I know.”

Jimmy barely seemed to notice his reply, already crawling across the bed to tug the blankets down. He’d sunk back into that contemplative temperament, pausing in his preparation of the bed only for Pancake, who would sometimes circle the bed in want of a pet or two. It was an indescribable moment to Thomas, both entranced by how handsome the cut of Jimmy’s bare form was, but suddenly aware of a certain childlike quality in the blond, which had just emerged like something that only shone through when held up to the light.

The tranquility became so poignant to Thomas, he was almost startled when Jimmy had finished turning down the bed and suddenly asked him, “ _You_ won’t be uncomfortable sharin’, will you?”

Usually one to pride himself on confidence, Thomas clumsily opened his mouth to say nothing. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted, choking on a torrent of emotions that were in direct conflict with one another. His eyes flicked to the carpet as self-consciousness tugged the corners of his mouth up into an odd, little smile. “I’m just not used to it,” he finally said, settling on a sentiment that was at least half true. He thought about his cold bed and cindered romances – and all the mess that had come with them.

“Creature of habit, eh?” Jimmy prodded. He was sitting on his calves, the heels of his hands dug into his knees as he spoke. He glowed with a beautiful sort of ordinariness that made Thomas feel – for the first time – attached to a world that wasn’t so terrible and strange as it always seemed. The drag of his past dripped away like he’d just awoken from an unhappy sleep.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Thomas bristled slightly. As if to dictate a point, he abruptly marched towards the bed, discarding his blazer and shirt atop his case along the way. “I don’t know how you’ve managed, though,” he said as he parked himself on the edge of the mattress just a few scant inches away from where Jimmy knelt. “Hoppin’ from place to place as you have been – isn’t that tiresome?” he wondered as he started to unfasten his belt and trousers.

“Like a proper pair of travelers, me an’ Pancake,” Jimmy said with a touch of pride Thomas didn’t expect. “No rules, no attachments – no broken hearts. Just today and tomorrow – and then the day after that.”  

Hearing this, Thomas hitched briefly as he started to shimmy out of his trousers. Unsurprisingly, his proximity to Jimmy as he did so put Pancake on alert, and he came hurrying straight for Thomas to interrupt any furthered discussion on the topic by grabbing one trouser cuff between slobbery jaws. The giant dog pulled, yanking it enough for a threadbare rip to worry the garment. “For fuck’s sake!” Thomas snapped, finally at his breaking point with Pancake’s meddling torment.

His irritation was quickly squashed when a quick dart of flesh and blond zipped through his field of vision, and then a heavy weight landed across his lap. Thomas’s hands flew up in surprise and hovered in the air as he glanced down to find Jimmy stretched across his thighs to give Pancake a light cuff behind one of his floppy ears. Thomas’s eyes darted over the back of Jimmy’s blond head, lingering upon the asterisk tattooed to his trapezius, and then roved down the length of his spine, rounding the grizzly bear boxers that were flush against Thomas’s chest. Thomas’s frail heart quivered faultily as Jimmy shifted to give Pancake another scolding tap, hypersensitive to even the slightest flex of muscle in the blond’s thighs. Thomas’s suffering imagination trembled to wrap those powerful legs around his waist, heels dug into the small of his back as his head filled itself with all the low, euphoric sighs Jimmy might make by starlight.

“Pancake, _drop it_ ,” Jimmy commanded as he tapped Pancake again, this time on the nose. The displeased tone in Jimmy’s voice was what finally did the trick, and the St. Bernard grudgingly released Thomas’s trousers. Jimmy retreated, settling beside Thomas on the edge of the mattress without a clue as to what he had just put Thomas through.

Meanwhile, Thomas fixated on a watercolor that hung on the wall directly opposite him until the paint strokes ran together, and then blindly returned to pulling his trousers off. In the glass of the framed painting he could just make out the ghost of Jimmy’s face, which was very intent and angled downwards, presumably on Pancake, who had heeled back onto his haunches. As he bent forward to tug his trousers over his feet, Thomas found himself eye-level with the panting animal, and frowned sternly in a way that he hoped commanded dominance. Pancake only slobbered at him.

A weird sort of embarrassment clouded Thomas once he was left clad in only his underclothes. Even though he was still modestly covered, being in a similar state of undress as someone he desired as much as Jimmy was almost cruel, and Thomas balked that he would foolishly betray himself. After a few moments of panic, he thought it best to try and stave off the unsafe wanderings of his mind with a bit of distracting chat, but then fretted that Pancake would retaliate with some truly destructive behavior. Less than thrilled by the idea of finding a hole chewed through the seat of his trousers, Thomas decided it would be best to hang a night cap on the evening, and quickly swung his legs around to shuffle across the bed and underneath the covers. He knew he was foolish to lay so close to what he wanted to be, and nervously picked at the imprint of his cross beneath his undershirt as he stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling. _Maybe this is me punishment, this devilish boy_ , he thought as he pressed the silver piece of jewelry into his sternum. _Maybe I’m just not s’posed to ever belong._

His musing was interrupted by Jimmy, who had rolled over to lay on his side, facing the middle of the bed. “You don’t want to wait up for Miss Sybil?” he asked, propping his head up on a bent elbow.

“That rainstorm sort of gobsmacked me,” Thomas lied as he blinked up at the wooden rafters.

“Yeah, me too,” agreed Jimmy, who then clicked the lamp on his side of the bed off without warning, turning the room over to the countryside moon. The mattress dipped and wobbled as Jimmy rearranged himself in the dark, lying on top of the blankets with his hands over his stomach and his toes pointed at the ceiling. “Girls take forever in the bath anyway,” he justified before Thomas had a chance to tell him there was no need to accommodate him; “Who knows when she’ll be back, right?”  

Swallowing, Thomas meekly agreed: “Right.” He was far more preoccupied with washing his dreams out with _mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_ before the shadows of the night got the better of him.

“I wonder why she’s goin’ to London,” Jimmy went on abstractly, though Thomas was afraid to let himself respond with similar curiosities about Jimmy’s exodus.

He instantly regretted his silence, for it was quickly stolen away by the telltale ringtone of ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ beeping away on Jimmy’s mobile. His guts churned as he felt the bedsprings shift with Jimmy’s move to pick it up, on pins and needles when he realized that Jimmy wasn’t going to ignore the call. Grumbles of, “Doesn’t she know what bloody hour it is?” weren’t much of a consolation to Thomas, who had never dreaded hearing the word ‘Hello’ more in his whole life.

The anticipation was toppled over in the most unexpected of ways. Out of the darkness leapt Pancake, who knocked the mobile from Jimmy’s hand as he bounded onto the bed and threw himself across the blond like he was trying to shield him. Pancake’s sheer weight knocked any sort of response out of Jimmy, replaced with a rasping cough. Thomas, on the other hand, was startled by Pancake’s sudden reaction, and ricocheted up in concern, clutching his cross to his chest and irrationally terrified that Jimmy was suffocating. The protectiveness instilled within Thomas nearly transformed into an anger that justified shoving Pancake onto the floor without ceremony, and was only able to bite down on it when he saw Jimmy’s arms snake up around Pancake’s fuzzy silhouette in a rather endearing semblance of a hug. The mobile finished out its ringing forgotten on the floor, while Jimmy scratched the fluff around Pancake’s neck and under his ears, which earned a happy bark and a contented thumping of the tail.

“O-Okay, me laddo, let’s give daddy some air, yeah?” Jimmy said, attempting to roll Pancake off to the side. He pushed his weight against the dog like he was trying to turn him over to the edge of the bed, but Pancake resolutely teetered in the opposite direction, landing himself between the two men instead. In the dimness, Thomas could just make out a sour expression on Jimmy’s face, which Pancake licked away with enthusiasm. “Sorry,” Jimmy managed to say once Pancake had settled down and burrowed partway beneath the pillows, clearly intent on having the premiere spot on the bed. “I’d hoped I could get him where he wouldn’t disturb you but….”

“It’s fine,” Thomas said tightly, attempting to lay down again. It wasn’t, though, for the moment his head hit the pillow, Pancake snapped up and shoved his wet nose against Thomas’s cheek in what seemed to be a warning. The cold sensation of it made Thomas recoil with a disgusted growl. He wiped the residue off his face with the back of his hand and then slammed his head back against the pillow with forceful belligerence. Pancake nudged him again, this time pressing a slobbery jowl against Thomas’s chin. It might have almost been a sign of affection if Pancake hadn’t also gone out of his way to swat at Thomas with his nearest forepaw.

By the time this cycle had repeated for the fourth time, Thomas was propped up on his elbows, sorely tempted to grab up those extra pillows and blankets to make a pallet on the floor. But doing so would also be like admitting defeat, and if there was one thing Thomas wasn’t about to abandon, it was being close to Jimmy. Staring down at the blond, who was peacefully resting on his side of the bed with his arm looped around Pancake, Thomas could only look on in wonder.

“Try huggin’ him,” came an unexpected suggestion from Jimmy, who – up until that moment – had appeared to be sleeping. The moonlight caught the hollow of his eye, illuminating the blue iris peeking up at Thomas from behind a tuft of Pancake’s fur. “He likes it.”

Thomas was taken aback, unsure he was really sure it was a good idea. The dog that Jimmy loved was a very different creature than the one that was currently trying to kill Thomas and get away with it. “I – I can’t,” he tried to excuse himself with trepidation.

“What’re you sayin’? ‘Course you can,” Jimmy derided with a roll of his eyes. Before Thomas had a chance to comprehend what was happening, Jimmy had reached over Pancake to grab one of Thomas’s wrists, dragging it back over the dog’s body before depositing it in such a fashion that Thomas’s fingers fell into the gutter between Pancake’s side and Jimmy’s body. Thomas expected Pancake to take issue with this, but had to admit pleasant surprise when the dog allowed him to remain as he was – even if the touch of Jimmy’s flesh against his knuckles was very nearly paralytic.

“See? Very easy,” he nodded as he slid back down and replaced his own arm around the St. Bernard, his fingertips just brushing Thomas’s torso. A yawn rose up from Jimmy, as he tiredly added, “Hugs are his favorite….” 

In the stillness that descended afterwards, Thomas flexed his hand to check that it was still there, and then his lungs to be sure that he was still breathing. Sleep seemed like a particular impossibility as he lay there with two heartbeats on his palm, but the night was merciful, and soon found him floating through its lethargic ethers long before Sybil ever came back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoy this still. I have a new work schedule so my gears are going through a bit of a shift right now. I don't want to say I CAN'T get weekly updates still going, but I might be a little all over the place for the time being. Sorry about that! 
> 
> In the meantime, I hope this was enjoyable :)


	8. Bowled Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pick-up game of cricket at dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR ANY ERRORS THIS IS VERY UNEDITED STILL D: 
> 
> Also, I think I got the rules of cricket on lock-down, but it was an education for me while writing this for sure.

 

The room was aflame with daybreak orange when Thomas stirred again, shaken from a deep sleep by none other than Jimmy. Thomas opened his eyes to find Jimmy leaning over him, fully dressed in a black chinos and a tee shirt depicting a fat, cartoon walrus, and suffered a bout of momentary confusion as he tried to work out whether or not he was still dreaming. Blearily, he propped himself up on his elbows and glanced around the room as wakefulness slowly seeped back in. Pancake was patrolling the floor, flagging his location with a perky tail, but Sybil was gone – though her case was still sitting at the foot of her bed, packed and ready to go. Stifling a yawn, Thomas asked after her.

“Remember? You promised her cricket. Now she’s gone downstairs to see if that landlady’ll pack us somethin’ to eat while we’re out,” Jimmy told him, crossing his arms over his chest. He seemed distressed, a frown creasing his beautiful lips. “Me an’ Pancake usually do a fast, hard mornin’ run, but it looks like you got us into a whole day of it. Good job.”  

“If I recall, it were _you_ that agreed to the cricket,” Thomas reminded him as his scan of the room passed over the huge mess of unused pillows, which threatened to avalanche over his and Jimmy’s luggage. It was then that he noticed that his cherry red bat was missing – a discovery which jolted any hint of drowsiness out of him. In a panic, he snatched Jimmy’s wrist just as the blond was starting to move away from the bed, and squeezed: “Where’d it go?”

“Where’d what go?” Jimmy asked. He was staring down at Thomas like he’d gone a bit mad – a notion that probably wasn’t helped by the roughness of Thomas’s uncombed hair, or the crazy ways the residual pomade he wore had made it stick.

“My bat,” Thomas enunciated as he quickly sought out Pancake out of concern that the dog had bided his time until morning to get back at Thomas for invading Jimmy’s sleeping arrangement. However, the St. Bernard was busy shoving his nose into his food bowl, chowing down on his breakfast with a flurry of stray kibble bits raining down around the dish’s rim. He clearly had no interest in Thomas or anything to do with him, though it was almost more worrying to the cricketer when he found the obvious assumption to be an incorrect one. He pulled on Jimmy’s arm with a bit of urgency as he elaborated his concern: “It’s missin’. Tell me you know where it’s got off to. Tell me you’ve at least _seen_ it.”

Jimmy didn’t look any less hesitant about Thomas’s sanity at the question, but he did at least assuage Thomas with as answer. “Sybil’s got it. She wanted it to help plead her case for a picnic if the landlady were stubborn about it,” he said slowly, gently pulling his wrist free of Thomas’s relaxing fingers. “S’pose she didn’t think you’d mind that much.”   

Thomas let out a low grunt of grudging acceptance, though he wasn’t exactly pleased by the situation. Sybil seemed to be a kindhearted soul, and she obviously respected the game considering how much her father did, but it didn’t stop him from wishing he had been consulted about it. In any case, he’d have at least made a point to get himself up if Sybil was really that gung-ho about hitting a few balls together: it was better than waking up to the horror that his most important possession had been stolen.

“Why’s it matter to you anyway?” Jimmy suddenly asked as he moved to Pancake’s side and stooped to pet him. He glanced up with a quixotic furrow in his brow, shrugging, “Sybil didn’t mean harm. S’not made of gold or sommat, is it?”

A redness heated Thomas’s cheeks, a bit embarrassed by his own compulsiveness. “I-It’s an antique. Sorta,” Thomas explained feebly, trying hard to sound unimportant about it. “An’ it’s been through a lot, especially since I’ve had it,” he went on, tilting his head back to stare at the rafters. “You know – memories and that.”

“You mean that business about Oxford or whatever?” Jimmy retorted with a sharp sarcasm that snatched Thomas immediately. Once again, he was surprised that Jimmy kept any sort of recollection of the things he said – which led to a certain type of fear that Jimmy _also_ kept track of the things he hadn’t. But then Jimmy was talking again, driving his attention over other uncharted territories. “I don’t understand why you’d want to think about any of that again,” Jimmy said, plopping down on the floor beside Pancake, who was still stuffing his face. “I’m not even sure why you want to go back to Oxford at all.”

The temperature in Thomas’s face was rising as flashes of his past blinkered through him. So many telling details that built his history centered around the conflict taped to his sexuality – details that Jimmy didn’t need to know – and yet, it was impossible for him to completely box up every dragging tendril of something so inherent about himself. Part of him wanted to confess everything to Jimmy, from the butterflies in his stomach all the way to the troubles that had sent him packing from Oxford – and ultimately, even his home in Manchester. He wanted to say everything and nothing at all; he wanted to lie, he wanted to tell the truth – he wanted, he wanted, he _wanted –_

“I mean, I know it’s none of me business,” Jimmy interjected after such a long pause, “but you said you didn’t have nothin’ left there when you went on your way. What’s the point of even lookin’ back if you’ve already turned yourself round?”

 Thomas sucked in a huge breath, suffocating his last dithering moments of uncertainty before he decided to let free a few more wisps of untold veracity. “I… think I mentioned datin’ a law student?” Thomas began slowly, carefully choosing each word like it might be his last. He then swallowed as Philip reentered his thoughts, sweet nostalgia paired hand-in-hand with the terrible, and prayed to a God that had forsaken him as he detailed the broken remnants the best he dared to. “Well, I’ve sort of put my foot in it an’ I couldn’t think of anyone else to turn to,” Thomas expelled on the fumes of another long exhalation, speaking so quickly, his individual syllables were threaded tightly together as one. “So I thought I’d go down there and plead me case in person. ‘Cause I’m… I’m….” The sentence crumpled up in the back of his throat, suffocating the rest of his thought.

But Jimmy had suddenly popped back on his feet, crossing the floor in a few quick strides so that he could clap him on the back. “A _git_ ,” Jimmy emphasized with a grin as his hand connected with Thomas’s body hard enough to knock a cough out. “Couldn’t just ring up, eh?” Jimmy laughed, full of fanfare that loudly drowned out his previous sentimentality. “Needed to be sure she – um – knew just how much you’d _love_ her help. I bet she’d _lo-ove_ to at least – ah….” Here, he gave Thomas a rather scintillating appraisal that dragged a gash from nose to navel as Jimmy’s eyes roved across him. The shape of Jimmy’s mouth had become positively mischievous as he quirked an eyebrow and finished: “To, ah, _listen_.”   

Eyes watering for lids that could blink, Thomas stared up at Jimmy and tried to keep his stomach jammed down his neck after such an unfair tease. For one hot minute, he could have sworn he was reading a silent testimony behind Jimmy’s eyes, even if it was quickly burnt out by oblivious banter that clearly denoted otherwise. Thomas scrunched his fingers around the blankets that still swaddled his lower half, and tried to remind himself that the superficiality equated safety. Then, rolling the covers off his legs and standing up, he waded through the sea of pillows to retrieve something appropriate for outdoor play.

“If you’re goin’ to shower, I’ll just clean up after Pancake, an’ we’ll meet you downstairs,” Jimmy decided after watching Thomas root through his clothing. He watched one of Thomas’s drowned and muddy loafers roll towards him, amazed by the disrepair they’d fallen to in just two days, and then wondered, “Haven’t you got trainers?”

Thomas was about to wave the question off, except that he _didn’t_ , and Jimmy was already herding a pair of bright red, high-top trainers into his hands. Any argument that there was no way someone as short as Jimmy could wear the same size as him wasn’t even allowed to come to fruition as he took them, realizing very quickly his own feet might be a tad bit smaller when it came down to it. He flipped them over in his hands, examining the padded insteps and the rubber soles; the black laces crisscrossed up and over the ankle, closing just around the lower shin. “Are you sure these’re alright?” Thomas asked, a little more used to cleated boots and cricket whites.

Jimmy shrugged, clearly not as consequential about traditional colors. “I like to wear ‘em when I skate or go out runnin’,” Jimmy said. “You could stomp on the whole world in those things and never feel the shock.”

Thomas hummed an acknowledgement, and then was forced to hit pause and rewind. “You skateboard?” he marveled incredulously, somehow hesitant to hear the fact repeated. Things like precise coordination, risk-taking, and freeness of spirit absorbed into Thomas’s unending fodder for his dreams like a shock of lightning. It thundered through him so loudly, he almost didn’t comprehend Jimmy’s rather enthusiastic reply.

“Yeah,” he said as he started the oddly impossible task of cramming Pancake’s items into his bag. (Pancake, meanwhile, made himself busy with a giant, blue squeaky toy that was shaped like a whale.) “I got me board somewhere in the Pinto, under one of the seats, maybe. Hey!” He called out to Thomas, who looked like he was about to bolt for the bath lest he be stuck listening to Jimmy talk about it. “Hey, I promise,” he went on once he had Thomas’s attention again; “If you can manage to get me smackin’ one of them cricket balls straight outta there, I promise I’ll show you some of me best tricks.”

“What happened to bein’ our resident footy champ?” Thomas asked dryly, though he was unable to keep the amusement from his face. He liked seeing these personal little interests come out in Jimmy: it only made him that much more attractive.  

“There’s a difference in what you do to win and what you do for fun, Thomas – you should know that,” Jimmy replied, speaking as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I can’t say I do,” Thomas said rather flatly as he pressed his bundle of clothing – and a fresh towel from the closet – close to his chest. Then, not sure he wanted to argue the distinction, Thomas made a quick exit for the bathroom, stepping quickly like Jimmy was going to come hurrying after him with some sort of counterargument, which would then wake up the entire bed and breakfast as they heatedly debated it in the hallway before the sun had even fully lifted its head.

The bath offered the same sort of solitude he’d found in the beachside inn, except this one at least offered some more modern amenities. Thomas was grateful for a shower that allowed him to stand beneath the icy spray that was trying to slap him back to life and normal sense. He’d dreamt of Jimmy that night without anything to be done about it, and could only hope the shock of the cold water would keep his electrified desires under control. But the voltage was already running beneath his skin on wired veins and copper nerves. The shock of it was his pulse – a motor for a bludgeoned heart that had long since stopped working – and Thomas felt as though he could have lit the dawn with just a spare bulb clutched in one hand.  

He dressed in the lightest pair of trousers he had, which was more of a slate gray than white, and a two-tone jumper that was at least half the correct color. Considering the attachment Thomas had to his red bat and the game itself, it was almost ironic that he had nothing proper to wear for cricket, even if there was nothing official about it. But somehow, when he sat down to lace himself into those red, red shoes – which were far more vibrant than even Thomas’s cherry-lacquered bat, he was overtaken by a sensation like he was about to head out for the biggest championship of his life. Thomas had never owned a pair of trainers that hadn’t been either white, gray or black, and had to take a moment to sit on the bathroom floor with his legs stretched out, staring at Jimmy’s skate shoes like he was trying to understand them. Jimmy, who had a great, big dog and ran, ran, ran with him all across the United Kingdom in those shoes – who could skate when he needed to fly. Thomas wondered if he’d also be able to fly in Jimmy’s shoes as well: they certainly fit him snugly enough. He thought of the half-peeled sticker he’d found at the petrol station the first time he’d called Tom since his escape, and repeated the motto like it was a new philosophy. 

_Skate or die, skate or die!  
_ _Just shut up and get rad, because now it’s time to –_

When he got downstairs, he found Jimmy, Pancake and Sybil all waiting with their luggage. A sadistic, tiny voice in the back of Thomas’s conscience whispered about Jimmy touching his clothes – his undergarments and his personal items – as he repacked Thomas’s case, and Thomas had to work double-time to keep his euphoric shudder confined to just one leg. He felt an undue amount of relief when Sybil wordlessly returned his cricket bat to him unharmed – though he had to run his hands over its every angle to be sure that every little discoloration and nick was just as he remembered it. He supposed Jimmy must have given her a talking to, because she was noticeably quiet and let Jimmy do most of the talking.

“Well, it seems Sybil’s little scheme worked,” Jimmy said, giving credit where credit was due. “Apparently there’s a field on the other side of the car park that could suit our purposes. So we figured we’d load up and then have our little game, and maybe by then, Andy or Daisy or whoever’ll bring us out our picnic.”

Jimmy glanced over at Sybil, who was slowly shifting out of her guilty doldrums as the realization that her mistake had at least forced Jimmy to stand up for Thomas. That discovery cheered her up immensely, and she clapped her hands with glee, adding, “I’m so excited, Thomas – you don’t even understand! In my house, cricket is as serious as going to Church. It’ll be nice just to play for _fun_.”

“I… I s’pose you’re right,” Thomas managed. He was fairly certain he hadn’t had an opportunity to play for fun in quite some time either. Despite his initial hesitance, he was warming up to the idea with every inch higher the sun rose outside. Maybe there would be something almost sacramental in it – a cleansing of sorts for all of them.

“’Course I’m right. I’m always right,” Jimmy snapped as he picked up his duffel and made a sharp turn towards the door, marching onwards like he expected the rest of them to hurry after him with the rest of their things.  

Which, of course, they all did.

Pancake raced across the car park to rejoin his master with the ball they were going to use in his mouth. By the time Thomas and Sybil caught up, Jimmy had already unlocked the Pinto and pulled back the passenger seat so that he could more easily cram his duffel into the back. Thomas quietly fed him the rest of their cases, all the while straining to catch sight of Jimmy’s hidden skateboard – which he didn’t catch sight of until Jimmy extricated himself from the Pinto and reached for the door without scooting the seat back. Crammed halfway underneath, it lay with its white wheels up so that the chubby stegosaurus stenciled onto the deck’s underside was just visible. Looking at it made Thomas feel closer to Jimmy somehow, like he’d just unearthed another clue about his nature.

“Anythin’ else?” asked Jimmy, whose voice reverberated from within the car. He had a hand stretched back towards him, fingers flexing for another case.

“That’s it,” Sybil chirped as Thomas stood dumbly in place, distracted by Jimmy’s bent figure and the way his trousers fit over the curve of his backside. 

“Smashin’,” Jimmy replied and slid the seat back into place. He then climbed back into the car, sitting in the passenger seat as he reached across the width of the vehicle to insert the key. “Let’s get a little background music on,” he announced as he twisted the key in the ignition, leaving it in the accessories position. The radio snapped on, immediately filling the fresh air with a rousing beat. Jimmy cranked the windows down so the sound would float around their morning exercise, keeping time with the rise and fall of his shoulders, while Thomas lost himself in the melodic poetry that was made only more poignant when Jimmy sang along.

 _“You told my friend_  
_We would get it on no matter when –_  
_A supercavitation._  
_Let’s go, you show_  
_Me something no one will ever know:  
__A love hallucination.”_  

The metallic slam of the Pinto’s door startled Thomas back to the present, where Sybil and Jimmy were both clamoring for him to pick up the slack and follow them to the nearby field. Enunciated with yellow morning glow, the green was wide and trim, perhaps due to the cows that occupied the neighboring pasture. The three of them took a moment to stand on the edge and simply drink in the sheer expanse of countryside that rolled out before them, stretching so far into the distance, it seemed like the rest of the world was only grassy knolls and thickly clouded skies. A refreshing breeze toyed with the landscape and carried distant mooing and the copper jangle of cowbells to their feet. Combined with the radio, there was something quite nostalgic about the scene, like a vintage photograph printed on a stamped and sent postcard.

_“Another lonely superstar_  
_To get away inside your car,  
_ _Take it much too far.”_

“Nice shoes,” Sybil commented idly to Thomas as they lingered. She then shot a quick glance over to Jimmy, who was busy trying to wrestle the cricket ball out of Pancake’s mouth. Pancake, however, seemed to have decided the ball was his, and was reluctant to give it up – even to Jimmy.

“Thanks,” said Thomas, who held his bat over one shoulder and watched the scene as if it wasn’t nearly as interesting to him as it was. A bad part of him sort of enjoyed it when Jimmy scolded Pancake, even if Jimmy usually just ended up cancelling his ire out with an unyielding supply of hugs for his dog. But then again, a soppy part of him liked that, too.

As soon as Pancake relinquished the ball, Sybil then turned her attention to the makeshift pitch and pointed to a pair of narrow aspen stumps about twenty yards from one another. She said decisively, “Look, those can be wickets. We’ll make it simple and just say it’s put down if the ball strikes it in any way.”

“Fine by me,” Thomas nodded, ambling after her with his bat still slung over one shoulder. The pink trackie she wore stood out against the soft, natural hues that surrounded her. She readied herself near the furthest stump, while Thomas moved to stand by the other, finally unsheathing his bat with a loose swing that cut the grass springing up around Jimmy’s crimson trainers. Pancake ran circles around them, trying to anticipate where the ball was going to go.

“Where shall I stand?” Jimmy shouted over the music wafting from the Pinto.

Thomas dropped his batting stance to shoot Jimmy a contemptuous look. “Really?” he derided, shocked that someone could know so little about a national pastime. Jabbing his bat towards the outfield, he said, “Go wide, ey?”

“Okay….” Jimmy obeyed, trotting out to the empty corner of the green Thomas had so loosely indicated. He lifted his arms and then let them fall against his thighs with a loud smack: “Now what?”

“Wait for me,” Thomas called back as he reassumed his stance and signaled Sybil with a slight inclination of his chin. “I’m comin’ for you.”

He meant every word of it, too.

Sybil nodded and fell into her run-up, which – Thomas noted – was just as expert and precise as she had boasted. She released the ball with a bit of spin and a slight curve, and it zoomed towards Thomas with such an impressive amount of punch, Thomas was almost caught off-guard. But his instincts had taken over at that point, and his swing connected with the ball with precision. The ball cracked against the lacquered willow and popped high overhead. All of them, including Pancake, were captivated by the flying ball, even when it started to fall back towards the ground.

“Catch it, Jimmy!” Sybil shouted as if there were actually runs at stake. Thomas calculated he probably could have scored twice with that particular hit, though

Jimmy squinted into the new light filtering through the clouds, his hands cupped like he meant to field the plummeting spheroid. Just when he thought he was going to stick it, he was bowled off his feet by Pancake, who had apparently decided that his affinity for fetch was more important than any kind of loyalty to his master. Jimmy tumbled over, feet sailing through the air, as Pancake lumbered by, claiming the ball as his own. He then went dashing off to return the ball to Sybil, who rewarded him with enough petting to make Pancake ignore Jimmy entirely – which (Thomas could swear) had made Jimmy a little bit jealous.

“Alright, I let you have that one,” Sybil called down to Thomas, who was gearing up for another round. “Warm-up’s over, Mr. Barrow!”

Thomas only smirked in reply – and proceeded to slam yet another ball deep into the field with ease. Practically leaping underneath the falling ball, Jimmy came closer to catching it this time – though his efforts were once again thwarted by Pancake. “Bad boy!” Jimmy roared at the St. Bernard when the intervention caused him to trip and fall back on his rump. He smacked the grass in annoyance, while Pancake ran the ball to Sybil for another round of pets and praise. “When does this get fun?” he demanded of his compatriots as he continued to sulk on the ground.

“I’m havin’ a blast,” Thomas said, though the challenging glimmer in his eye was fixed upon Sybil as she sized him up from her end of the pitch.

“Me as well,” Sybil chimed in with a similar level of competition in her tone. She skipped through her run-up and flung the ball down the pitch, where Thomas was forced to guard his wicket with a desperate block that he hadn’t expected to employ. The ball clunked a few awkward yards away, which Pancake was available to scoop up almost immediately. Thomas touched his forehead with new respect for Sybil. He could count on two hands the number of times he’d been dismissed in his entire cricketing career, but the fact that Sybil had forced him to scramble after so short a time had won him a better appreciation for the sort of woman she was.

“Ain’t that just fab for you lot, eh?” Jimmy complained from the outfield, his arms folded as he pouted. “If you don’t jazz it up soon, me an’ Pancake are goin’ to go play footy by the car.”

The idle threat caused Thomas to lift a hand of truce towards Sybil as he called for a brief respite. “You want to give battin’ a go?” he offered, a smirk riding his shapely lips. “I _did_ promise to give you a pointer or two.”

“Too right!” Jimmy exclaimed, very noticeably energized by the prospect of having something new to try. He ran over to Thomas’s stump wicket and practically grabbed the bat out of Thomas’s hands – much to Thomas’s amusement and pleasure.

“Alright, let’s see what you’ve got,” said Thomas, stepping back to take on the role of wicket keeper. He cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted down the pitch to Sybil: “Take it easy on him, if y’will. He’s just a baby.”

Jimmy whirled around to give Thomas a dastardly look at such talk, the interim of which Sybil used to bowl a rather clean shot that sent the ball driving straight into the makeshift wicket. Thomas sniggered and bent to pluck up the ball from where it had landed beside the stump. “Ooh, too bad, baby boy,” he teased as he lobbed the ball back towards Sybil; “Weren’t that a lost wicket by our rules, m’lady?”

“I believe so, Mr. Barrow,” Sybil replied as she plucked the ball back up. Pancake was too busy chasing a butterfly to notice the ball shuttling back and forth.

“You’re a pair of cheaters,” Jimmy accused, his pout quickly returning. “Give us another one!” he demanded of Sybil. He made an effort to prepare for the shot, but Thomas could already tell how it was going to play based on his sloppy grip on the bat. Sybil bowled, and Thomas’s prediction came true with another swing and miss.

“Quit _laughin’_ and show us the proper way of it!” Jimmy snapped when Thomas became overwhelmed with hysteria. “S’not meant to be funny!”

“You’re worse than me friend, Tom – and Tom’s prob’ly the sorriest cricketer in the whole of Britain,” said Thomas as his amusement subsided.

“You don’t have to keep prefacing him like that,” Jimmy huffed as he shoved the bat in Thomas’s direction.

Confused, Thomas arched a brow: “Like what?”

“ _’Your friend, Tom,’_ ” Jimmy enunciated with a roll of the wrist supporting the bat; “I _know_ who he is.”

“Ah,” said Thomas as he reached for the bat and relieved Jimmy of it. Unable to avoid the intersection of their fingers, the lightning in Jimmy’s fingers flickered through him and fried any hope of a clever rejoinder. He attempted to mask the dazed spell Jimmy’s proximity cast upon him by focusing on the cricket, lining himself up to bat with a proper stance and grip on the bat.

“Well, first thing’s first,” he began, almost as desperate to sink himself into the technique of the game for his own sake as Jimmy’s – though for very different reasons. “You’ll want to be sideways – like so – with your fingers round the handle so you’ve got a V.” He made sure Jimmy got a look, and then gave Sybil a nod that he was ready. She took the shot, and Thomas narrated his way through the swing: “Make sure you step into it, and roll your shoulder down a bit.” He drew a straight line across the grass, connecting the bat blade with the ball effortlessly; “An’ that’s that. Simple.”

“Simple, he says,” muttered Jimmy, who tracked the ball’s arc through the air. The crack of the wood against the ball had snapped Pancake’s attention from his butterfly friend, sending the dog galloping after the flying object. His frown intensified as Pancake slurped up the ball and delivered it to Sybil yet again, cementing Thomas’s suspicion that Jimmy didn’t like Pancake’s new preference.

“D’ya want to give it another go?” Thomas carefully asked, almost taken aback by the aggressive way Jimmy snatched the bat out of his hold. He stepped aside as Jimmy stomped into line with the tree stump, though he couldn’t help but notice that Jimmy’s annoyance seemed to have obliterated any of the tips Thomas had just provided. The obsessive inside Thomas desperately made him want to intervene, and he dithered with uncertainty as to whether or not he should. He peeked over at Sybil, who had yet to take her shot only because Pancake was rolling across the grass and causing quite the distraction. Catching the tightening of Jimmy’s grip around the bat’s handle, Thomas chewed his lip and took a risk.

“Um, if you don’t mind,” Thomas announced himself as he moved near enough to Jimmy to lay his hands on the blond’s shoulders. The jolt rang through Jimmy’s frame as Thomas’s palms curved over his biceps was almost enough to send Thomas’s hands flying back to safety, except that Jimmy relaxed long before Thomas had a chance to execute the reaction. Hoping the tremble that was convulsing through him wasn’t that apparent to Jimmy, he gently spun Jimmy so he was facing the opposite direction. Their eyes flicked across one another, which made Thomas’s heart lurch. “Because you’re a lefty,” he explained quickly, dropping his gaze to Jimmy’s bony hands, which were uncomfortably wrapped around the handle in a right-handed person’s formation. Jimmy’s fingers became pliable as Thomas lifted them and replaced them in the correct, mirrored position. “Try that, ey?”

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Jimmy seemed to have more confidence with his dominant hand in control, though there was still dubiousness in the rest of his stance. Still riding the high of manipulating Jimmy’s hold on the bat, Thomas rounded the blond and hovered behind him to push a weighted forearm onto Jimmy’s back shoulder, his other hand reaching to adjust his lean with a touch against Jimmy’s waist. He half expected to be shoved away for his forwardness, but Jimmy allowed himself to be shifted in any way Thomas deemed fit – an incredibly heady experience for the dark-haired cricketer to be sure. It was such that Thomas felt the need to excuse himself when his chest brushed Jimmy’s back to coach him through the rest of the swing. His voice nearly crushed by the Pinto’s radio as he murmured, “Keep your feet light and steer with your shoulder – all together, now." 

_We’ll do our thing tonight,  
_ _Drive the constellation._

Thomas held his breath as Jimmy took a practice stroke, their movements rolling in such unison, it was as if they’d been comingled into one creature. “Much better,” Thomas whispered as Jimmy rocked back onto his right foot to wind up again; “Very good, Jimmy.”

“I think I’m getting’ the hang of it,” Jimmy marveled after a few more pantomime attempts under Thomas’s guidance, somehow still unaware of how even just the smell of him affected Thomas. It would have taken so little for Thomas to scoot his hands down Jimmy’s arms – to slide them around Jimmy’s waist as his lips found the square of Jimmy’s jaw and kissed a curve down the length of his neck. Maybe Jimmy would moan a little and lean back into him, tell him it felt so good –

_It’s time – you’re fine._

“Any time you’re ready,” Sybil interrupted, her voice sending a spike of nerves through Thomas as he was ripped from the parallel universe he’d tumbled into. He knew without even checking that Sybil could pick out the secret microcosm of desire that ruled Thomas’s mind, and that was dangerous. Almost as if he’d caught fire, Thomas flew back from Jimmy, determined to squash anything that Jimmy might have read as untoward.

He was rescued by the arrival of breakfast, which came ferried to them in a large picnic basket by Andy and Daisy. Pancake was the first of them to thrill at the prospect of food, quickly abandoning Sybil in favor of finding out what was hidden beneath the checkered blanket that covered the basket. Andy seemed noticeably uncomfortable with Pancake’s nosiness, dancing in an odd little spiral as he tried to avoid the St. Bernard’s intrigue. Daisy laughed heartily at his awkwardness.

“What’s the crack?” Andy asked as he set the basket down, leaving Daisy to spread the blanket and unpack the basket. The removal of toast, boiled eggs, sausages, fried tomato, onion and potato and a container of dried haddock elevated Daisy in Pancake’s esteem, which Thomas silently analyzed from afar. Pancake was behaving in an uncharacteristically nonplussed way that day, and Thomas wondered what had changed since the day before. He chalked it up to the oddity of starting the day with pick-up cricket instead of the run Jimmy and Pancake usually took together, and supposed that Pancake was just excited by all the new distractions. But it was hard to know: dogs weren’t exactly within Thomas’s realm of expertise.

“Thomas has transformed me into a professional cricketer,” Jimmy announced with a touch of pride, though he had yet to actually hit the ball. He was still focused on Sybil as he continued to practice his swing, practically taunting her to hit him with her best shot – though Sybil’s competitive edge had long since been reduced to wry amusement.

“It’s not all that. Just a bit of fun,” Thomas deflected. He recalled the implication Daisy had made the night before – that Andy had been made a bit uncomfortable by the assumptions he’d made about their sleeping arrangements the night before.

Daisy perked, though her kneeling figure was mostly obscured by Pancake’s enormous girth. “Can we play, too?” she wondered from behind the wall of brown and white fur. “After we eat?”

“I don’t know Daisy,” Andy fretted with folded arms. “Won’t Mrs. Patmore be cross if we take too much time?”

“She said _‘enjoy yourself_ ,’” Daisy snapped impatiently. “She’ll be cross if we don’t do just that – and I’d like to get some pointers on cricket meself.”

Sensing the disruption in the air, Jimmy abruptly dropped the bat in favor of inserting himself between Andy and Daisy. He seemed invested in easing the pair of them towards one another, perhaps out of some sense of personal entertainment. It wasn’t until Jimmy had weaseled his way between Pancake and Daisy, one arm slung over her shoulder and the other wrapped around his dog, that Thomas even realized that he’d completely forgotten to mind his precious bat. For about twenty-six seconds, he dithered about it, half tempted to go obsess over its condition even though his main desire laid with Jimmy and breakfast. Something about the decision to sit down on Pancake’s other side felt like some sort of achievement – like he’d managed to break free of some horrible habit. He thought that as he slipped his hand into his pocket in search of cigarettes.

“Of course you can!” Sybil enthused, appearing beside Andy to take him by the hand and drag him towards the picnic. “We can’t have Mrs. Patmore being _cross_ , can we?” She distributed Andy next to the picnic basket, which sat on Daisy’s unoccupied side, and then settled down beside him to tuck in. Her eagerness to eat was endearing in a way, somehow adding to the rebellious, strong personality that didn’t seem like it belonged to a girl raised the way she had been. Very pronouncedly, Thomas was reminded of his initial impression that Tom would be smitten with her, and spent some time imagining all the obscure ways he might get them in the same room. Inspiration struck hot so long as Jimmy continued to slather thick hints upon Daisy about what she was missing in Andy.  

“I’m sure Andy’d be happy to help you dust up,” Jimmy was emphasizing to Daisy as he gestured with a half-eaten banger.

“I don’t know. Cricket isn’t exactly my game,” Andy worried nervously. Glancing over at Thomas, who was in the process of removing his last fresh cigarette from the crushed packet in his pocket, he suggested, “Maybe your – uh – friend would be a more suitable teacher.”

Jimmy grew indignant at this idea, and snapped, “Oh no. I ain’t relinquishin’ me secret weapon. You’re on your own.”

Thomas fumbled his lighter, clicking it uselessly as he tried to recover from – from whatever _that_ had been. Meanwhile, Sybil laughed and reminded Jimmy, “We’re just out for a bit of fun, Jimmy.”

“Don’t let that pretty face fool you,” Jimmy said as he bit into a boiled egg, while simultaneously feeding Pancake another sausage. “Sybil throws like a boy. Not a joke, that Sybil.”

“I throw like a girl, thank you!” Sybil retorted indignantly. “And quite well at that.”

“She’s very good, actually,” Thomas inserted as he finally managed to get his cigarette lit, consumed by the relaxation a much-needed nicotine breakfast provided.

“My father would have disowned me if I wasn’t,” Sybil told the group as she reached for another helping. “He’s a funny man, my father. He’s probably one of the last bastions of English tradition in the whole country, but the idea of having a child that couldn’t bowl cricket properly is more offensive to him than anything else.”

“Yeah?” Jimmy asked around a mouthful of egg. He was deceptively blasé as he stroked Pancake and said, “More offensive than whatever it is you had to lie to him about before you came sneakin’ off with us?”

A tiny yelp escaped Sybil, startled by Jimmy’s acute observation. She scrambled for a quick answer, but her aversion to give a direct answer was obvious even to Andy, who knit his brow pensively as he listened to her.

“It’s my cousin, Rose. She needs my help with something,” Sybil said in a rush, nervously twirling a curl of black hair around her index finger. Her eyes were on the floating clouds above, like her destination – whatever it was – was something to be found skyward. “My father is stubborn in his ways, especially when it comes to family. He wouldn’t understand.”

“Don’t we know what _that’s_ like,” Thomas grumbled under his breath, his words muffled behind the hand wielding his cigarette. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Jimmy looking at him, quickly realizing that the blond had heard his discontent. It only unnerved him further to notice that Pancake was matching his master’s attention, unsure what the scrutiny meant. Cigarette smoldering in one hand, Thomas reached for a banger, though he didn’t quite manage to get it to his mouth; halfway on its journey, Pancake leaned over to snatch the sausage from his greasy fingers, wolfing it down in two smug bites. “Or not,” Thomas muttered, regretting his premature supposition that Pancake was any less hostile towards him.

Sybil led the charge to more pleasant topics, clapping her hands and clasping them together. “Well, no one here likes being dreary,” she said as she stood up. “We’re supposed to be _enjoying_ ourselves, isn’t that right?” She winked at Andy and Daisy, who were preoccupied with trying to hide the little stolen glances they kept handing one another. Jimmy was quick to join in the distraction, and followed Sybil’s lead.

To Thomas, the slip of Jimmy’s attention was no different than the sun falling behind an obstructive nimbus. The cold that overtook him when Jimmy hopped to his feet and skipped at warp speed to catch up with Sybil left Thomas shivering as though a storm had rolled over him, Jimmy no more than a thin corona of light glimmering in the distance beneath the dark stratum. By the time Thomas had recovered from the loss of Jimmy’s warmth, he was alone on the blanket with a tepid breakfast and a burnt-out cigarette pinched between his knuckles.

Over on the pitch, Sybil was ready to bowl, while Daisy, Andy and Pancake took to the outfield with merry laughter. But none of them mattered as much as Jimmy, and faded away as stars behind the rising sun as Thomas watched Jimmy gracefully arch forward to pluck the bat up again. The wind stroked the blades of grass around the blond, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies swirled up on the current of sound floating from the Pinto, like there was magic in everything he touched. A spell of eternal summer colored the dawn. 

_Golden gate, my rearranger:  
_ _Hold my name inside your rays – rays – rays…_

And Thomas fell in love again, destroyed by the irrationality of just how badly he wanted Jimmy – just as much as he always had.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick reference to Skate or Die by Teenage Bottlerocket again, and the title track of the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, The Getaway. Which is a... hint about the meaning of Jimmy's tattoo. Though people who know me well should have figured that out already ^__~
> 
> Sorry this is late, sort of. STUFF KEEPS HAPPENING TO ME.


	9. Kick, Push, Coast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy opens up a little about where he's been, all while still getting some skating in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to edit it as much as I could! I'm sorry for any errors. I've been hilariously busy lately. I think my updates might now have to slow down to every other week. I hope that's not horrible!

 

 

 _So come and skate with me –  
__Just a rebel lookin’ for a place to be!_  

Approximately two miles after Jimmy flew over the English-Welsh border, music blasting at full volume, he stepped heavily on the brakes and screeched to a near stop. The Pinto went into a slight tailspin, sending its occupants lurching, first, forward, then nauseatingly from side to side as Jimmy grappled with the wheel to keep the car on the correct side of the center line. Except for the fact that they hadn’t collided with anything, Thomas was gripping the strap over his seat like his life was about to flash before his eyes, and only loosened his hold when the Pinto was travelling along the curve of road at a comparative snail’s pace. In the backseat, Sybil was clutching Pancake like he was the last thing she would ever hold, though Pancake’s rather blasé drooling suggested he was rather accustomed to Jimmy’s ridiculous breed of driving. 

“For Christ’s sake!” Thomas gasped as the engine began to thrum with another increase in speed, though Jimmy was too busy busting rhymes to pay him much attention.

“Speed camera,” Jimmy interrupted himself to explain, even as he continued to cut the beat with hands that weren’t holding the wheel at all.

“Right, well, don’t kill us and all?” cautioned Thomas, who simultaneously wished to God Jimmy didn’t look so temptingly devilish whenever he spoke, or he might have actually had the mind to slag the blond off for being so inconsequential about their safety instead. Still, he wasn’t going to complain if Jimmy was going out of his way to avoid the kind of unneeded attention that came stapled to a traffic ticket: Thomas had always been very uncomfortable around police.

“You want me to drive like your gran, I can,” Jimmy said coolly, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re the one who were jumpin’ to get to Oxford, so don’t bite me head off for tryin’ to help.”

“No one said we were _rushin’_ ,” Thomas rejoined, unsure where Jimmy’s attitude was coming from. “Besides,” he added with a note of dark trepidation, “we’re almost there anyway.” It was a sort of surreal thing to announce, as though it hadn’t been real until he’d voiced it. Now that he’d made it this far, he was starting to second-guess himself, wondering if his plan to see Philip was really as terrible as Tom had cautioned him it would be. Nerves made him panic for Tom’s input – regardless of the fact that he could already predict exactly what Tom would repeat to him – and he anxiously glanced down at Jimmy’s mobile, where it was charging in its usual spot by the Pinto’s cigarette lighter. A mere buzz and beep from the mobile sharply reminded Thomas of his snooping deceit, and he drove his attention elsewhere – though it didn’t do much to abate the surge of discomfort tossing to and fro in the pit of his stomach.

In the back, Sybil was composing a text that she informed them was for the sister at Oxford she was planning to pop in on. “I like her fiancé a lot,” she elaborated as she typed. “I at least want to be sure to see _him_. He’s much less uptight than Mary.”

Thomas watched her in the side mirror, wondering how he might request to use the device without seeming odd. He decided to rip the bandage off quickly, and twisted round in his seat to face her. “Would it be an awful bother if I made a call with that?” he asked, his brain already kicking into overdrive with potential pitfalls, like curiosities about why he couldn’t just use Jimmy’s, or why he needed to borrow it at all. “I lost mine, an’ Jimmy’s is far too – ah….” He trailed off, flashes of the texts he’d read already blinking through his memory, and then finished lamely: “Too popular.”

“Of course!” Sybil agreed with a smile. “You must be going mad without your own.”

Sybil was halfway through passing the device up to Thomas, when Jimmy jerked his eyes away from the road, frowning at the phone as it landed upon Thomas’s palm. “What’s wrong with mine?” Jimmy huffed, acting as though he’d been insulted by Thomas’s choice to ask Sybil instead. “I don’t even read half the messages I get, much less _care_ –“

His guilty conscious only expanded the more Jimmy went on about it, so Thomas cut him off: “Well, I wouldn’t want to _intrude_ ,” he emphasized as he gripped Sybil’s mobile, clutching it with the same fervor as one might hold a sacred talisman. The difference in shape that hers bore from Jimmy’s was relieving in a way, like it could protect Thomas from the irrational fear that Jimmy could peer into his skull and unearth his dishonesty.  

“What, on me personal life?” Jimmy asked with a haphazard shrug. “I’ve half a mind to make _you_ answer the next time Ivy tries ringin’ anyway. See how she likes _that_.” The idea seemed to fill Jimmy with black humor, his breathy chuckling almost maniacal. Thomas could only stare at him, concerned, until he found himself pinned beneath the sharp blue of Jimmy’s gaze once more. “You’d scare her right stupid,” Jimmy smirked, which was so lovely to Thomas, he completely forgot to yell at Jimmy for his inattention to the road. A passing car horn whirred by them, but neither man seemed to notice.

“W-Well, thanks for the offer, but I’m alright for now,” Thomas swallowed nervously, still not about to relinquish his hold on Sybil’s phone, which seemed infinitely safer. With the bat resting between his thighs, he was already pinching the device between his two hands, his thumbs dancing across the keypad to punch in Tom’s number. Upon further deliberation, he figured it might be better if Jimmy didn’t have Tom’s information in his call log: something about the way Jimmy had brought him up during their morning cricket session had given Thomas pause – though he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Don’t think you’ve escaped givin’ Ivy what for,” Jimmy drolly informed Thomas, who was just about to hit the last digit in Tom’s number. “I’d just _love_ to make her squirm.”

“Why don’t you just tell her to leave you alone?” Sybil demanded, inserting herself between the two front seats at the first sign of gossip. Behind her, Pancake started barking, clearly not very enthused about the direction the conversation had taken. There was a certain condescending tone Jimmy’s voice tended to sink into whenever he got on about Ivy, which Pancake must have learned to hate. It left Thomas wondering what could have arisen between Jimmy and Ivy to trigger such protectiveness in Pancake.

“ _Because_ ,” Jimmy started to say, though he derailed himself to fuss with the radio, displeased by the shift to advertisement. The Pinto swerved as he leaned heavily towards the center of the car to scan through the airwaves, only haphazardly glancing up at the road here and there. Pop, more advertisements, classical, more pop, the news –

“Oh my God, _Jimmy_!” Sybil suddenly screamed, jarring Jimmy’s attention in time to rescue them from veering off the road and into a ditch. Squealing tires matched up with Jimmy’s sudden swerve, and Thomas accidentally punched a string of 4s into the end of his sequence. Pancake’s barking reached a panicked crescendo.

“Calm down, calm down. We ain’t died, have we?” Jimmy grumbled mostly to himself as he returned to the center of his lane – though he was still sailing at an irresponsible speed, even around bends. Thomas momentarily forgot dialing Tom in favor of grabbing hold of the handle above the window. The news station Jimmy had abandoned the radio at served as an odd score for Jimmy’s unhindered joyriding.

Somewhat eased by the fact Jimmy was at least watching the road again, Sybil returned to their previous topic. “You were saying something?” she pressed, apparently very interested in hearing more about Jimmy’s abandoned home life.

“It weren’t nothin’,” Jimmy shrugged, gripping the wheel with abnormal strength and leaning over it like he was battling some undue stress. “Only that you think I haven’t tried that already? I told her I wanted to take some time to clear me head, but she’s the sort that’s too thick to take a hint. She don’t understand that it were her own fault I lost interest. She keeps actin’ like I’ve done somethin’ that needs fixin’. Or even somethin’ I’d _want_ to.”

Thomas forced himself back to the task of phoning Tom, pretending that it was vastly more important than anything else around him. He tapped the call icon and held the phone to his ear, though the ringtone was barely more than a dull, far-off buzzing that was stifled by his focus on the conversation between Jimmy and Sybil.

“And what exactly is it that she thinks you’ve done?” Sybil asked – practically repeating the same thoughts that clouded Thomas’s head.

“I’ve moved on, that’s what,” Jimmy said rather succinctly, his expression masked by Sybil’s enormous sunglasses. He wrenched the gear stick into third and then transferred his foot from the clutch to the accelerator with a firm stomp that sent the Pinto flying. Both Sybil and Pancake rolled into each other, crashing into the mountain of baggage that padded the backseat. “I used to be taken with her because Alfred, me mate, were desperately in love with her. Call it a brotherly rivalry if y’like. But Ivy liked to play the pair of us for fools and I got sick of it, me. I really, really did.”

This information wasn’t entirely new, but it thrilled Thomas to hear that Jimmy was very decidedly unattached – at least as far as Ivy was concerned. It empowered the lovesick fool in him. Somewhere in the background, he was vaguely aware of the ringtone that was still singing into his ear, and the chat on the radio, which was focused on national news; Pancake was still barking in annoyance. Thomas desperately wanted to switch the radio off – if only to make listening in on Jimmy and Sybil easier – but fretted over whether or not doing so would make it obvious that he had an ulterior agenda. He pressed the mobile more tightly against the side of his face, murdered by the anticipation.

“And you told her that?” Sybil asked again, though she kept casting surreptitious glances in Thomas’s direction. Luckily, Jimmy didn’t seem to notice, which momentarily absolved Thomas from the fear that Jimmy would start to wonder what the big secret was.

“I told her – and then some. We had a massive row about it,” Jimmy informed her blithely, speaking almost as if such a thing was completely inconsequential. “She’d landed on Alfred again, but got upset with me when she caught me with someone new afterwards. I’ve got feelin’s too, y’know. I ain’t got to be dangled on a string forever – but she didn’t see it like that. Apparently I’m the ruddy sod that broke her heart or _whatever_.”

“So she wants you back, but you’re through,” Sybil surmised with a long hum. She threw another pointed look at Thomas.

Just as Jimmy was opening his mouth to reply, the sound of Tom’s voice interrupted the forgotten ringtone in Thomas’s ear. His greeting was tentative, obviously brought on by the fact that Thomas was using an unfamiliar number to call, but he was quick to put the jigsaw pieces together, and almost immediately asked, “Thomas, is that you?”

“It’s me,” Thomas confirmed, chasing Sybil away with a significant stare of his own. “I just wanted to check in with you – make sure everything was alright.”

“I’m the one who ought to be askin’ that,” said Tom with an edge of concern. “I assume you’d’ve heard by now.”

For a crisscrossed second, Thomas tripped up, paused between comprehending what Tom was telling him, and still trying to eavesdrop on the Pinto’s chatter. “Heard what?” Thomas recovered after a brief pause through which Jimmy more or less confirmed Sybil’s assessment.

“She forgot it’s not _me_ who needs _her_ ,” Jimmy said cantankerously. He jammed on the brakes again, presumably for another speed trap, and then almost immediately gunned the engine back up to the brink. His irritation towards Ivy was pouring out in the increasingly irresponsible way he was handling the Pinto, though no one dared point that out again.

“About your father,” Tom was saying, unwittingly interrupting Thomas’s distraction with his viscerally sobering comment.

“Anyway, she gets worse when I leave it – like there’s sommat to talk about. She decided it were some kind of mistake I made to get at her for goin’ back to Alfred. _Again_ ,” Jimmy explained to Sybil, who was soothing Pancake with crunching fingers at the scruff of his neck. “Which is precisely why I’m goin’ to check in on me dad in London. Stay away for a bit, let it all die out.”

“About _what_?” Thomas yelped into the phone, accidentally whacking himself in the ankle with his cricket bat when he jumped in shock. It was a dark breed of kismet that had synced Tom’s announcement with Jimmy’s mention of his own father. A sharp throbbing shot through Thomas’s skull, and he had to hold his head in pain as the enormous blow-out he’d had with his father just before storming off assaulted his memory. It had been a bloody argument that had brought Thomas to his breaking point, and he’d acted rashly – said and done things he probably should have eaten his pride on and taken back if he could.

Thomas’s sudden exclamation stirred Pancake, who was still fairly quick to let it be known that Thomas was not his favorite. He jabbed his muzzle between Sybil and Thomas’s headrest to give Thomas’s hand a push, growling low in complaint. Sucking his teeth in annoyance, Thomas leaned away, his styled hair whipping freely as he bent into the air whipping through the open window. Tom’s voice became garbled with the sudden onslaught of noise, while Thomas groaned heavily: “Jimmy, can you _please_?”

“Can I what?” Jimmy shrugged when Pancake whined innocently in protest. The cursory look Jimmy tossed across the Pinto was acutely embarrassing for Thomas, as his hair was completely fluffed by the wind, and that he looked ridiculous crunched against the door as he tried to continue his chat with Tom in a slobber-free environment. Drooling – as far as Thomas could tell – seemed to be Pancake’s primary function.

“Who’s Jimmy?” Tom interjected, sounding a little concerned about Thomas’s whereabouts. “And is that a _dog_ with you?”

“Don’t worry about it – it’s fine. _I’m_ fine,” Thomas quickly deflected, though the irregular pattern his sick heart took whenever he glanced Jimmy’s way sharply contradicted that statement. His fingertips automatically worried the cross trapped beneath his jumper.

“Are you certain of that?” Tom pressed, still rankled with worry for his friend. An indistinguishable Irish syllable came fuzzing over the line, but Thomas didn’t get a chance to hear the full extent of Tom’s next thought, for Jimmy was blindly reaching for the radio to change the tuning, but accidentally twisted the volume far too high instead. The presenter on the forgotten news station was suddenly shouting her report with unbearable loudness to the four occupants of the Pinto. Pancake howled in pain, while Jimmy continued to grope for the right dial.

“Police are seeking any information that might relate to what they are now classifying as foul play up – _to get some! We’re up all night for good fun! We’re up all night to get lucky!”_

Thomas had dropped Sybil’s phone between the seat and the center console in his desperation to resolve the radio fiasco. His hand collided with Jimmy’s as he grabbed the tuning dial just as Jimmy’s had found the volume, and their combined efforts returned music to the Pinto’s speakers at a much more tolerable level. Thomas felt as though he’d just sprinted a mile, so quickly did the whole thing take place. The exasperation only doubled as he fought to breathe properly, his skin numb where his arm had intersected with Jimmy’s. The brief minute ticked by like a blissful eternity, which Thomas couldn’t bring himself to disentangle himself from until Jimmy returned his hand to the wheel. The process was then expedited by Pancake, who had leaned forward enough to chase Thomas’s hand back to his side of the car with a shoving nose. He pretended like it didn’t bother him as he thrust his hand beneath his seat and patted the floor in search of Sybil’s mobile. His knuckles kept bumping into the wheels of Jimmy’s upturned skateboard as he felt around for it.

Unsurprisingly, when he finally unearthed the device, the call with Tom had been ended. For a brief moment, Thomas wondered if he should redial his friend, but then decided against it. He’d only wanted to let Tom know that he was alright, and didn’t think he wanted to end up having some damningly personal conversation that left him announcing things to the whole car he’d rather keep private. One day, he hoped there would be a time he could lay with Jimmy and tell him all his secrets, but that would take some careful navigation yet. Besides, it seemed Jimmy had plenty of his own untold truths that were in desperate need of unraveling. The intrigue was enough to send Thomas’s hopes into overdrive.

“Everything well and good?” Sybil asked as Thomas strained to reach around Pancake’s enormous girth and return her mobile.

“I just wanted to have an update with Tom, that’s all,” Thomas told her. “I sort of vanished in the night. I don’t want him thinkin’ I’m dead, or in jail, or somethin’ equally mad.”

Jimmy unexpectedly supplied the next question: “So he doesn’t know where you’ve gone?” he asked from behind Pancake’s furry mass. His tone was difficult to read.

“Well, he’s got an idea,” Thomas said vaguely, though it only conjured the doubt that Tom had about his plan to see Philip. “But I weren’t interested in a production, me. I’m sure you understand that.” He dared to search out even the slightest reaction in Jimmy’s face as he spoke.  

“Oh, and I _do_ ,” Jimmy smirked as he leaned back in his seat and sunk into his low, cruising position with one wrist pressed against the top of the wheel, his other arm slung through the open window. A dastardly little curl contorted his upper lip as he added, “Is that why you didn’t tell about _me_?”

Pancake barked and leaned heavily against Thomas, like he was trying to wriggle through the seats and crush Thomas’s femur bones with his fat bottom, but Thomas – for once – barely paid it any mind. Instead, he was drowned in the sweet summer air puffing through the window and floating through Jimmy’s blond hair, and how the whole car seemed brightened by just his mere presence.

“You could say that,” Thomas breathed, certain that causing a scene was something Jimmy was particularly expert at. Besides, Tom knew Thomas well enough to pick up on any sort of implication that was sure to be left if Thomas informed him that he had found a handsome young man to give him a lift.

“You should tell him,” Jimmy decided, which earned him a surprisingly displeasured yip from Pancake, who was now stuck awkwardly between the seats. Jimmy idly scratched the patch of fur between his two ears, ignoring Pancake’s complaining as he continued: “Y’know, so he knows that you ain’t alone, neither.”

“I think that’s the least of his worries,” Thomas grumbled, hoping no one would hear him. Another sign indicating Oxford whizzed by like a divine reminder of his own doom, and Thomas sucked in a mouthful of oxygen that stung the back of his throat.

“Ain’t the least of mine,” Jimmy said glibly, though obstacle of his huge sunglasses and his even huger dog still made it impossible for Thomas to read as much into the comment as he’d have liked to. He was still caught up on the insinuation when Jimmy started talking again: “It’s been nice, y’know – havin’ someone to talk to and that,” he went on. “Better than lettin’ things unwind in silence, right?”

A crazy idea that Jimmy was trying to suggest something indicative to him was quickly interrupted by Pancake’s squirming. The massive dog seemed determined to get himself physically between Thomas and Jimmy – even though he was much too large to fully fit between the seats, and that his presence there would have pinned Jimmy’s hand dangerously far from the gear stick.

Jimmy, as was typical whenever Pancake so much as sneezed, was quick to placate the dog with more affection, and let his gentle stroking elevate into much more vigorous scratching. “Of course you know all about it, don’t you, big boy?” he cooed at the dog, and Thomas could only glare at the animal, strangled with envy as he tried to guess what sort of secrets Pancake would share if he could. The strain of it was making everything in his brain drip down his nose, bleeding right between the eyes.  

“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?” Sybil put in from the back. She was leaning dangerously forward so that she could perch her chin atop Pancake’s soft body, her arms straining to pull him back with her.

From the corner of his eye, Thomas couldn’t help but think that the picture of the four of them all crammed into the front row of the Pinto made for a charming snapshot. _Friends, ey?_ he thought to himself, trying the phrase on for size. He supposed it was true – a strange, but altogether refreshing notion for a man who’d only ever had enough close friends to count on one hand. But when he inevitably settled on Jimmy once again, it was hard to leave it at just that: _Except for you_ , Thomas’s traitorous, masochistic head narrated on; _I would die a thousand times to be only your friend and still fall to me knees, wantin’ you more, and satisfied to wait._

“I s’pose you’re right,” Jimmy was agreeing, his lips moving in slow-motion around words that seemed to dance around, unattached, as Thomas watched. “Like a little band, isn’t it?”

“A _band on the run_!” Sybil laughed. The joke hit with Jimmy, and even Thomas, whose lips tugged themselves into a pleased smile despite his inner turmoil.

“ _Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun_!” Jimmy shouted over whatever was currently pounding on the radio. He tipped his head back and raised his voice like he wanted every car around them to hear him broadcast their new theme at the top of his lungs. “ _And the first one said to the second one there –“_

At this point, Sybil, joined in, and both she and Jimmy happily roared into the sky blue expanse that rose up before them: _“I hope you’re having fun!”_

Then they launched into the song’s chorus, and Pancake began to howl along. “ _Band on the run!”_ they yelled without care for pitch or unison.

A melodious laughter tumbled from Jimmy’s plump, parted lips, reminding Thomas very poignantly of the night they’d laid on that Welsh beach and bathed in the sliding tide. They’d both been raw and vulnerable that night, just as Jimmy seemed in that moment – like his very soul was expanding beyond the shape of his body to color the atmosphere.

It made the world shimmer before Thomas’s eyes.

 

\--

 

They stopped to refuel the Pinto and revitalize its patched-up tank at a petrol station hardly more than an hour outside of Oxford. To Thomas, it almost felt like a nerve-wracking sort of countdown, all through which he started to doubt his logic now that he’d made it this far. Sitting on the steps leading up to the station’s little mini mart, which overlooked the car park from the top of a small knoll, Thomas unwrapped the fresh pack of smokes he’d just purchased and watched Sybil play fetch with Pancake, while Jimmy pumped gas. Automatically, Thomas pulled out a fresh cigarette and inverted another one in the pack for luck. He most certainly needed as much of _that_ as he could foster.

Striking his lighter and taking a few puffs, Thomas tried his best to relax. His entire existence was a vortex of emotion, all of which had shifted from the terror of the unknown when he’d fled Manchester, to the blinding agony of seeing an angel for the first time. Despite his upbringing, Thomas had never believed in such creatures, even though he’d grown up talking to them as if he did. But since meeting Jimmy, who was leaned against the Pinto’s tail with folded arms, his ridiculous sunglasses pulled tightly against his face, Thomas was sure they were real – and that one of them knew him by name. The mysterious shape tracing Jimmy’s lips threw Thomas into a spin as he continued to spy through the gauze of cigarette smoke wafting through the distance between them. He longed to know what Jimmy was thinking, if it was about Ivy, or someone else – or some other lover he’d never mentioned. Perhaps none of it made a lick of difference to Jimmy, but to Thomas, it meant _everything_.

He clutched at his silver cross, jerking it so roughly on its chain, it welted the back of his neck.

Just the sight of Jimmy in the late afternoon was maddening. His golden hair was like a halo that made his entire being glow in the hazy sunlight, even when his expression flickered between the moody and the unreadable. Watching Jimmy like that, free of the Pinto’s confined space, Thomas was stuck appreciating the raw sexuality that pulsed through Jimmy’s powerful frame and lackadaisical posture. Such an attitude made Thomas want to cast away frilly talk of the heavens and the moon in lieu of giving Jimmy a much more animalistic description of the things he’d like to do with him. _Again and again_ , Thomas rasped inwardly, realizing that his desire was starting to become more unmanageable with each dying gasp. He eventually had to tear his focus away, staring down at the red skate shoes on his feet as he tried to erase the delicious things he could imagine for Jimmy’s mouth, bruised, wet lips and all.

But Oxford was drawing closer, and that presented Thomas with the reality that his time with Jimmy might be over long before it could have a chance to begin. _Perhaps it’s better like this_ , Thomas tried to convince himself around a few more stiff drags on his cigarette, softening his hold on the cross; _Maybe it’d just be a dead-end that’d burn it all out_.

The notion sounded ridiculous the moment he’d formulated it.

By the time Jimmy was finished refueling the Pinto, the petrol station was flicking on its evening lights. Thomas had smoked his cigarette down to a short, while Sybil and Pancake were a long way off, locked in an energetic sport that neither seemed eager to drop in the immediate future. Thomas dared to give Jimmy a short half-wave in acknowledgement as Jimmy opened the car, hoping that it might extend their time at this last oasis before the end. To Thomas’s unexpected surprise, the gesture seemed to work, and Jimmy reemerged from the Pinto with his skateboard, which he dropped to the tarmac and hopped aboard, propelling himself in Thomas’s direction.

“Goin’ to show us a trick, Jimmy?” Thomas asked as Jimmy neared. He removed a fresh cigarette from his packet and lit it in as casual a fashion as possible.

“Maybe if you let us have one of those fags, first,” Jimmy countered, jabbing a finger at Thomas’s pack of smokes. He rocked back on his heels, tilting the board at a slight angle beneath his soles, and then forward again.

“Smokin’s not very conducive to sport,” Thomas chided, reluctant to encourage his worst habit.

“Says you, Mr. Champion Cricketer. S’not like I’m sixteen an’ never had a puff before, is it?” Jimmy snorted, hopping off his board and bending to pick it up by the tail. He swung it under arm and strolled close enough to Thomas to bend over him, making his request nearly impossible to ignore.

“Barely, if that,” Thomas said with an arched eyebrow, taking joy in the shameless opportunity to rake his gaze over Jimmy from tip to toe. He offered Jimmy the packet and the lighter and met Jimmy’s eyes evenly, “How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-two,” Jimmy preened as he lit up. The smoke that sparked to life around Jimmy’s face stroked Jimmy’s cheek the way Thomas wished he might. The confirmation that Jimmy was seven years his junior did nothing to couch his affection in the least, and perhaps even kindled the flame a bit stronger.

“Quite a big boy, aren’t you,” Thomas said in an effort to sound detached.

“Big enough to know better, young enough not to care,” Jimmy retorted with one of his elusive smirks. He laid the skateboard back on the ground and fell into a crouch, the cigarette dangling from his lips as he smacked the tail against the tarmac and popped a quick ollie. He landed it well and rewarded himself with a series of quick puffs on his cigarette like anyone could step on a board and do it.

“Cute,” said Thomas, perching a bent elbow on the stair behind him. “Half the lads on me street can do the same. Let’s see somethin’ impressive.”

“Hang on, I’m just warmin’ up, me,” Jimmy said as he dragged the cigarette away from his puckered lips in a wisp of smoke. Thomas had to force his focus elsewhere, too undone by how much seeing Jimmy’s mouth contorted into that particular shape made him think of kissing.

Still, the rumble of wheels against the tarmac demanded Thomas’s attention not long after, and he was quickly arrested by the curling trail the burning cigarette left in Jimmy’s wake as he started skating back and forth. He switched back with a variety of kickturns and fakie tricks, slowly building up momentum as he started to carve around a rubbish bin and some forgotten traffic pylons. Thomas found it terribly unhelpful how the building resistance cut around Jimmy and zoomed up his shirt in rippling billows that exposed his toned midsection – especially when he caught air. Thomas looked on as if was watching a curbside ballet.

After a bit more shameless peacocking, which dominated Thomas’s every whim, Jimmy rolled straight up to the steps Thomas was occupying with a smug turn to his features, like he was expecting accolades. Thomas took a long, thoughtful drag on his cigarette and gave Jimmy another appraising once-over, working overtime to pretend like Jimmy’s eyes weren’t such a captivating, dusty blue.

“I s’pose you’ve got somethin’ there,” he said around a long, tobacco-flavored exhalation. He tried to sound unimportant about it, like it was enough to settle for the typical banter friends shared instead of the things he really needed.

Jimmy seemed taken aback that he wasn’t being praised to the high heavens, and adopted a particularly determined face. Hopping off the board, he flipped it up with a heavy toe on the tail and snapped it under arm. Then, full of braggadocio, he strode towards Thomas and leaned in with a forwardness that made Thomas’s practically quake with lovelorn fear. Thomas’s lips clamped down on the filter of his cigarette as Jimmy reached in to audaciously cuff his cheek. “You know I do,” Jimmy said, plucking his own cigarette out of his mouth and wedging it between two of Thomas’s slackened fingers. “Watch this.”

Too dumbfounded to react, Thomas could only stare as Jimmy ran up the short flight of stairs and laid his board on the pavement at the top. He took a quick spin around the front of the mini mart and then, once he’d gathered enough speed, ollied up onto the handrail lining the edge of the steps and ground down the metal bar with a shit-eating smirk aimed at Thomas the entire way. The sheer prowess with which Jimmy executed the trick, coupled with the idea of how toned his thighs had to be to pop the board so high, cast such a spell upon Thomas that his knuckles were deadened to the burning ash that dropped off of Jimmy’s forgotten cigarette as he stared.

The trance was smashed almost the exact moment Jimmy stuck the landing. He was busy shaking a pair of devil horns at Thomas as he cut a wide arc around the base of the stairs, completely oblivious to the increased volume of Pancake’s barking as he approached from behind. Despite the fact that Sybil was chasing closely, neither she nor Thomas had enough time to shout a warning to Jimmy as the enormous dog looped around Jimmy and heaved him off the skateboard. Jimmy went sprawling, landing flat on his belly and scraping his wrists and palms when he hit the tarmac. Almost with the same sort of proclivity as a nagging parent, Pancake sat with his front haunches pinning Jimmy safely to the ground, his continued barking a relentless tirade.

Despite Thomas’s usual frustrations with Pancake, and the fact that the St. Bernard had clearly come hurtling across the car park to break them some sort of perceived moment, he laughed so hard, he coughed on cigarette smoke. “Not such a big boy after all,” he chuckled, his cheeks stinging with mirth. It had been such a long time since he’d been filled with such genuinely good humor, he’d almost forgotten what it was like.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy!” Sybil apologized as she caught up with her large, furry ward, a drool-caked ball in her grip. She nearly tripped over the skateboard as it drifted across her path, unattended. “All of the sudden, he just lost all interest and came catapulting over here like something was on fire!”

Pancake merely howled in triumph and laid down, flattening Jimmy even more hopelessly against the tarmac. Jimmy stretched out, flailing in a desperate attempt to shift his giant pet. The result was just kicking trainers and a stream of colorful language emerging from beneath Pancake’s flopping tail. Thomas was starting to recognize when Pancake was pleased with himself, but this victory seemed to mark a particularly triumphant moment for the animal. Thomas dared to guess why.

But then Pancake had angled himself so that he could drag his large tongue up the back of Jimmy’s head, slicking his hair up into a stiff cowlick. Jimmy pressed his nose into the ground in defeat, and Pancake licked him again and again – until the tickling sensation overshadowed Jimmy’s annoyance and the blond had been overtaken with glee. Only then did Pancake relent enough to let Jimmy roll over and wriggle into an upright position, which soon devolved into their familiar roughhousing. Part of Thomas wanted to be angry that Pancake had stolen Jimmy’s smile from him, but it was difficult not to be warmed by how much Jimmy loved his dog.

By then, the petrol station’s luminosity shone against the blushing sky with pearlescent incandescence, washing out some of the fainter stars that had begun to peek through the clouds. The early touch of evening called Jimmy’s attention, and he paused in his and Pancake’s play to lift his chin heavenward, thoughtfully musing, “Should we try and make it tonight?”

“Whatever is convenient for you two,” Sybil said inconsequentially. “My sister already knows to expect me, so….” She trailed off as she sought out Thomas, almost like she was trying to encourage a protest out of him.

However, Thomas was too busy going through the throes of final uncertainty as he thought about what his reunion with Philip would be like to take notice of her. Philip and he hadn’t spoken since they had fallen out, and it was hard to say how Philip would receive a such an unprecedented visit. Worse still, he wasn’t sure what would happen if he was seen climbing out of Jimmy’s car: he didn’t put it beyond Philip to dredge up the same sort of unkindness that had come between them in the past with even the slightest implication regarding Jimmy. The last thing he needed at this particular stage was a revisit to their unpleasant history, especially when his reliance on Philip transcended so much more than the pettiness that existed back then. It was, quite frankly, a most desperate hour.

“Thomas?” came Jimmy’s softly questioning voice, the tone of which was the only thing capable of breaking Thomas out of his daze. Thomas blinked at him like the luminescence around him was new, and Jimmy gently asked, “D’ya want to make for Oxford tonight?”

There didn’t seem to be any point in prolonging the inevitable, though Thomas still hated the idea of truncating his time with Jimmy. _Maybe it won’t be the end,_ Thomas thought to himself, realizing he hadn’t fully considered what would happen _after_ he entreated Philip for his help. Then again, when he’d first started out, neither had he dreamed that he’d end up hitching a ride from someone like Jimmy, either. For all that was the same, so much was different.

Still, he couldn’t come up with a good reason to defer, so he flicked both cigarettes and said, “Why not?”

“Right, Oxford it is, then!” said Jimmy authoritatively. He gave Pancake a shove, and the dog reluctantly climbed off his master, allowing Jimmy to get to his feet. He didn’t seem disturbed by the prickles of blood glinting upon his scrapes, and carelessly went to fetch his skateboard, which he rode all the way back to the Pinto.

“You could come with us to London, you know,” Sybil murmured quietly as she and Thomas walked together, bringing up the rear. Pancake had already taken off to trot proudly around Jimmy as Jimmy crammed his skateboard back into the car.

“What’s for me in London?” Thomas absently queried aloud.

His answer was a very loud cough from Sybil, who was indicating Jimmy and Pancake with a surreptitious glance over the hand she’d used to cover her mouth. Jimmy was perched sideways upon the bonnet of the Pinto, his face lit up by the screen of his mobile, which glowed in his palm as he waited. As usual, he seemed to be busy with a backlog of texts.

Thomas hoped the heat in his skin wasn’t an indication of how deeply he’d flushed. “D-Don’t be ridiculous,” he stuttered in a rare show of nerves. “I’m the last thing on his mind, I can assure you.”

Sybil let out a rather unladylike snort. “Well, he’s certainly the first thing on _yours_ ,” she said drolly, smirking up at him, and Thomas became fully embarrassed that he was still so grossly obvious about himself. “Maybe it’s time you did something about it,” she suggested with a little wink.

“And throw it all out with a word?” Thomas replied stubbornly. “I don’t think so.”

“You’ll throw it out anyway when he drops you in Oxford and motors off without you,” Sybil counteracted sternly, almost as if she was scolding Thomas. She paused in both diction and propulsion to grab a handful of Thomas’s jumper, jerking him to a halt beside her. “Listen,” she said with continued sincerity: “Do what you like, of course. But don’t keep yourself from something you’ll only get to say once or _never_.”  

With that, she released the dark-haired cricketer and picked up her pace, nearly jogging back to the Pinto to greet Jimmy with a happy wave. Thomas lingered where he was, silently contemplating the scene and Sybil’s words. He’d wasted so much time in sincere misery because of his own follies and self-imposed limitations. Perhaps Sybil had a point that there was no harm in pursuing something if the only other option was ruin anyway. With a revolutionized sensibility, he regarded Jimmy and his shabby Pinto, suddenly careless about who Jimmy might have been so obsessively keeping in touch with at home, or whether or not Jimmy had skipped from one girl to a hundred others in the time since: instead, he was filled with a vehement drive to find out whether he was imagining the little insinuations in Jimmy’s mannerisms – if they meant the things he desperately wanted them to, or if it even mattered that they did.

 _And I will find out_ , Thomas doggedly told himself. _I’m goin’ to get you any way I can._

When he returned to the Pinto, Sybil and Pancake had already got into the back, and Jimmy was pulling the driver’s seat back into place so that he could also get in. He leaned across the center to unlock Thomas’s side of the car, and remained draped there even as Thomas opened the door and climbed in.

“Ready to take off, copilot?” he grinned. His teeth cut a moony crescent into the gloaming.

Thomas delighted at the assignation as he dragged the car door closed. But this time, instead of internally squashing thrilled butterflies, he let himself revel in the chase. “To the moon and back,” he retorted, flashing a hint of canine and a gleaming, gray iris back at Jimmy. “Or wherever you want to take us.”

“Heh, don’t give us the freedom. You’ll wind up somewhere wild,” Jimmy retorted in a way that – once again – left Thomas at a loss. He revved the screeching engine with a twist of the ignition key and laughed riotously at some sort of private joke as he let the Pinto roll out of the petrol station, back towards the motorway. The ever-present radio quietly serenaded them as they headed out into the night, accentuated here and there with the addition of Jimmy’s low tenor.  

 _Oh, the passenger,  
__He rides and he rides._  

The stars were winking overhead in a widening spread as the day gave way to their last peaceful night on the road together, scattering upon the windscreen in a microcosmic universe that freckled Thomas’s flesh and streaked his hair. A different sort of peace rained down from the sky upon Thomas, invigorating his newfound bravery like a refreshing summer shower. He stole peek after peek at Jimmy, no longer fettered by the constraints that had been quick to crush his affections. His father wasn’t there to shame his desires: he could chase Jimmy over the edge of the world if he wanted.

_And all of it is yours and mine._

He settled back beneath the stellar rain, watching it slide over the Pinto as if he were a conductor of planets. There were answers in the outer limits, enchantments in the earth. Between the orb of heaven and the white lines speeding alongside the Pinto, Thomas was again overwhelmed with the sensation that he had been suspended in a stratum that existed after the end of his past life and the start of something new. It was a place where the impossible was real, and the whole galaxy spiraled around everything that was Jimmy Kent.

A place he was happy to die.

_Oh, so let’s ride and ride and ride and ride,  
_ _Singing la la la la lalalala…._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry my life is sort of on fire and the update came late. I think I'm going to stick to every other week with my current schedule so I don't stress myself out trying to bust out quality in a limited time. I hope it just makes you more pumped about this thing! 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! I hope you liked it! I promise there will be revelations as soon as next chapter ;D 
> 
> Here's a list of all the music in this installment. Lots of chill vibes: 
> 
> Lupe Fiasco - 'Kick, Push' (Jimmy's themesong for this fic??)  
> Daft Punk - 'Get Lucky'  
> Paul McCartney/Wings - 'Band on the Run'  
> Iggy Pop - 'The Passenger' (Definitely Thomas's themesong for this one though, LBR)


	10. Oxford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oxford hasn't changed much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry my flow is slower, but I hope there are few mistakes and that you like it. Get ready, though. Shit's about to go down. Don't say you weren't warned. 
> 
> I guess I should add this chapter has some references to intense violence.

 

Oxford and its spires had long since fallen to dreams when it faded out of the midnight air, twinkling faintly like a mirage on the horizon as the Pinto entered its home stretch. In the back, Sybil was also fast asleep, passed out sideways against Jimmy’s sock-dripping duffel, while Pancake rested his slumbering head atop her thigh. Jimmy seemed as alert as ever, especially as he slurped at the huge coffee he’d made an emergency stop for once his eyelids had started to droop with fatigue. Thomas, meanwhile, had attempted to doze, but found the task impossible every inch closer they drew to their destination. Instead, he’d settled for a (much smaller) cup of coffee of his own, deciding that he needed these final, uncertain moments with Jimmy more than he needed rest. In the stillness of the night, beneath the sliding squares of motorway ambiance, it felt like the first time they had been alone since the Welsh beach.

Between sips, Jimmy was humming to himself, though the radio had long since been turned off to accommodate the sleeping Sybil. There was something altogether vulnerable about it, like Thomas was hearing Jimmy elaborate on something secret, even with no words at all. Thomas was terrified of breaking the mood with his own foolish mouth, and instead kept his lips firmly attached to the lid of his coffee cup as he mentally reviewed how he could try and tell Jimmy the truth. Any and all of it.

At length, his rumination was interrupted by Jimmy – which was almost startling in its familiarity. “Are you goin’ to stay in Oxford once you see your – um – friend?” he asked carefully, speaking in careful, frail syllables.

“Wish I knew,” said Thomas, who had been going back and forth over that exact question since Sybil’s comment at the petrol station. He paused to swallow a mouthful of coffee, and then added, “I really have no idea what to expect. Like I told you – all this were rather unplanned.”

“Ohh. Right,” Jimmy drawled, though there was still a touch of uncertainty in his tone. He leaned over the wheel, his arm pressed from wrist to elbow around its contour as he peered into the soft glow his headlamps pushed into the darkness ahead. He clutched his giant coffee and took intermittent sips that were made stiff by his strangely ardent focus on the road. To Thomas, it seemed like he was stuck in some sort of nervous contemplation, and he wondered what for. Even when Jimmy went on talking, Thomas got the impression he was dancing around a more pertinent question – which was nerve-wracking on its own.

“Was this a part of your plan, too?” Jimmy asked, eyes still trained upon the windscreen. “Hitchin’ a ride halfway down the country and that?”

“You mean hitcihn’ a ride with someone like _you_?” Thomas retorted before he had a chance to muffle his dangerous thoughts in a flood of black coffee. Clutching the cardboard cup, he itched for a smoke and tried to save his potentially disastrous comment. “There’s no way in hell I could’ve planned for someone like _you_ , Jimmy,” he said with what he hoped was sarcasm, though even he could hear the affection that slurred his every word.

“People say that to me a lot,” Jimmy mused, almost like the notion was curious to him, and then left the topic alone.

Thomas had zero question as to why that kind of impression was the sort Jimmy left behind, and could only continue to extrapolate on how many hearts had been left crumbled and torn in Jimmy’s wake. For a brief, almost insane moment, Thomas vaguely felt bad for poor, twisted Ivy, lamenting Jimmy’s absence up the Yorkshire quiet. Instead, he just hollowly mumbled into the opening in his coffee lid, “I can’t fathom why.”

“Did’ja say sommat?” Jimmy asked, taking the opportunity to peek at Thomas through the dancing low light as he slugged another long draught of coffee. Unmasked by Sybil’s sunglasses, the whites of his eyes were tinted amber in the highway glow, flecking sparks of bright yellow in his blue eyes like sudden explosions of magic every time they passed a car travelling in the opposite direction.

“No, nothin’,” Thomas abstracted, forcing his vision away from Jimmy’s enchanting gaze. A quick beat passed, and Thomas felt the need to fill the dangling gap with something, so he asked, “Just wonderin’ about _your_ plan and all. Takin’ nearly a bloody month to see London. I thought you said your father were there?”

“He is,” Jimmy agreed, though much more tentatively than before. “I just ain’t seen him in a while, that’s all. Workin’ up me nerves, I guess.”

“Really?” Thomas piqued, suddenly intrigued at the first real hint of personal information Jimmy seemed willing to part with. He’d have to tread carefully lest he lose the wisp of it on a foul breath. Still, he was determined to find out more, even if his instincts screamed at him to play it safe. He dug out his packet of smokes with a quick question of, “D’ya mind?” as he flashed his cigarettes at Jimmy, who shrugged. Then, feigning casual indifference, he slipped one into his mouth and lit up, the white roll wiggling between his lips as he boldly pressed the subject further: “How’s that?”

“How’s what? How I ain’t seen him?” Jimmy countered with a drop of uncertainty. He protected his need to immediately answer by slurping loudly at his coffee, wiping his lips on the back of his wrist before shrugging again: “What’s it matter, eh? You ain’t told me much about _your_ father, neither.”

“I have done. He’s a vicar in Manchester,” Thomas quickly interceded, pulling his cigarette from his lips in a rushing cloud of smoke that sucked out into the air through the open window. “And we don’t get on.” He threw that last bit in as a courtesy, certain Jimmy probably had already inferred as much, but happy to make that much perfectly clear should any more questioning on the matter come up.

“Fine, well, me dad’s a – ahh – businessman in London,” Jimmy returned defensively. “He’s divorced. He and me mum don’t get on. See?” He cleared his throat, which was thick from chugging too much of the black beverage at once, adding, “Now that’s done – we’re even.”

“Yeah? What sort of business does he do?” Thomas dared to ask, not at all willing to give up the game when it only had just got on its way. He toyed with the cigarette pack in his free hand, tapping its bottom against the center console as he smoked languidly out the window, his coffee cup pinched in his thumb and last fingers, poised beneath the pair that held his smoldering cigarette aloft.

“No business of _yours_ ,” Jimmy sniffed tartly, sounding almost offended that Thomas would wonder after such a thing. “You don’t see me askin’ what sort of shite _your_ dad’s up to, eh?”

Justifiably, Jimmy had just beaten Thomas at his own game – whether he realized it or not. Sour lips puckered around the filter of Thomas’s cigarette as he sucked down his pride and terror. “The sanctity of the confessional, I guess,” he drawled without much reverence. “Funny what secrets a man likes to keep, and which he likes to choke down other men’s throats.”

“I s’pose this is the reason we need our solicitor friend’s help?” Jimmy surmised rather astutely.

“In a word,” grumbled Thomas, who didn’t particularly care to have the tables turned on him – especially now that he was thinking about all the horrible things his father had said and done to him over the years – and the horrible things such treatment had molded Thomas into. He needed someone in his court that could kick back against the damage with the only sort of power his father had ever truly feared, which was – ironically – the law. _What is the Lord without the construct by which we adore Him?_ was a favorite saying in the Barrow household; _Likewise, what is Britain without the laws by which we abide?_

“You think it’ll work?” Jimmy asked, throwing Thomas another unreadable stare over the lid of his coffee. Smoke billowed around Thomas’s face as he stared blankly back, unsure what he was supposed to say, until Jimmy gave him a helping hand: “Your little scheme to get some old flame of yours to pull you outta the fire?” Jimmy clarified, obviously more comfortable in speaking when the topic wasn’t centered on himself.

“I’m not sure, if you really must know. It didn’t end well,” Thomas admitted rather candidly. He surprised himself with such a direct response, and had to immediately soothe the aftereffects with a desperate puff on his cigarette, which plumed erratically in the rushing wind. His desperation to get a drag in made him miss the languid glance Jimmy cast at the back quarter of his turned head, especially as he spoke to the whizzing tarmac outside, “Even if I _do_ get the help, I’m not sure what I’ve done is salvageable. Tom practically told me as much the brief minute we had on the phone.” His next mouthful of smoke came out in a long, tired sigh.

“Did he now?” Jimmy breathed, almost like he’d skidded across ice he wasn’t sure would crack under his weight. “What makes you say that?”

Thomas certainly wouldn’t be detailing any of _that_ , positive that to even start would be to reveal far too much personal history in too short a time span. He didn’t want to think back to his last midnight ride with Jimmy as one that had been fraught with depressing family baggage and all sorts of unpleasantness that would hang any potential intimacy with Jimmy from the neck. He could already envision his chances kicking and gasping until they snapped beneath the bough. “It’s not important,” he waved off, fanning his cigarette hand back and forth over his face. “Just a feelin’, I s’pose.”

“You must go on a lot by feel,” murmured Jimmy so quietly, it was almost eaten up by the wind surging into the open car.

But Thomas had heard, and he earned a sharp crick in his neck for jerking his head around so vehemently when he did. The dregs of his cigarette flew out from lax fingers and bounced with a vibrant spark against the tarmac left in the Pinto’s wake. “And what exactly does _that_ mean?” Thomas stirred up the gumption to ask, emboldened by the caffeine and nicotine spilling through his system. The thump, thump, thumping in his chest seemed to riot louder than even the Pinto’s groaning engine – a sure testament to how vulnerable he was to its every little tremble.

“I dunno,” said Jimmy, burning with all of his usual ambiguity. “You tell me.”

“What’s to tell?” Thomas pontificated behind a tilted coffee cup that had just run dry. “I’m nearly thirty years old, and all any of that has done is left me miserable and alone. Nothin’ I do ever comes to much. So what does it really matter?” The confession echoed within the empty cup, but Jimmy was watching him almost as scrupulously as the road. “Maybe you’ve got it in one – just roamin’ the world to find out what it’s for,” Thomas continued as he dangled the cup outside the Pinto on precarious fingers and pinned his packet of smokes atop his inside knee with the others.

There was a lull that Thomas momentarily mistook for a gap in the very fabric of the world, but quickly realized was just the deceleration of the Pinto as Jimmy tried to steer with his coffee hand, while simultaneously groping towards Thomas’s side of the car. “How else are you s’posed to do it? You’ll only get older for nothin’ the longer you wait for somethin’ to just _happen_ ,” Jimmy was telling the road shimmering in the Pinto’s headlights. Simultaneously, his wandering hand closed around Thomas’s packet of cigarettes. The action clasped Thomas’s fingers between the cardboard box and the inverted bend of Jimmy’s knuckles, causing the coffee cup dropped helplessly from his outside hand, bouncing along the highway as the Pinto zoomed off without it.

“D-Do what?” Thomas stuttered, his mind blank when he tried to recall what the topic of their conversation even was. Jimmy’s largest nail was drawing tiny circles into the flesh between Thomas’s index finger and thumb like he was pressing cocaine straight through Thomas’s pores. Thomas’s vision swam into a haze of yellowed headlamps and roadside flickers.  

“Know what the world’s for and all,” Jimmy repeated as Thomas’s fingers loosened enough for him to tug the cigarettes free. “Who ever did anythin’ with his life by stayin’ still?” he elaborated as he dragged the packet open with his teeth, which he then also used to snag a cigarette for himself. He pulled it free and unceremoniously threw the box back in Thomas’s general direction, somehow managing to juggle the coffee, the Pinto and his quest for a light. “Help?” he eventually entreated Thomas as he leaned back in the dark-haired cricketer’s direction, presenting him with the unlit cigarette that protruded from between pert, blossomed lips.

Too flabbergasted to find words, Thomas silently rummaged through his pockets for his lighter and flipped it beneath Jimmy’s cigarette. The sudden wash of golden ambiance across Jimmy’s handsome face, dancing and shifting in the purple night, illuminated the blond like he’d just been flicked to life from the depths of a dream. Jimmy ignited the cigarette and leaned back into his seat, alternating between long sips of coffee and indulgent drags on the fag. Exhaled smoke licked the driver as he revved his car into high gear, whizzing by him in translucent feathers that made it seem as though he were flying through fields of earthbound stars on gauzy wings.   

“Thanks,” Jimmy eventually acknowledged around a lungful of smoke, though Thomas had long since drifted into a trance. Jimmy’s voice seemed both distant and singular as he drawled on, “What it is – right? – is that it’s just smooth sailin’ if you man the tiller on all your ownsome. Blow your load over the status quo, y’hear me?”

The allegory only served to make the blood drain from Thomas’s face. “I-I can’t disagree,” he managed to get out as he fumbled for a fresh cigarette of his own. _Pow_ , he thought to himself as he sparked the new light, plastered to his seat like he’d just been flattened there by Jimmy’s explosive behavior. The itch to confess all his tarnished truths to Jimmy was starting to become unbearable, especially with Jimmy making grandiose and uncouth statements like that. He almost got his chance.

“Lay it on me, Barrow,” Jimmy demanded with a curl to his lip that allowed for an ongoing plume of smoke to chug around his jaw. “Tell me all the fucked up things you don’t give a _shit_ about,” he asked, speaking like they were the only two people in the world – an illusion which was quickly decimated by an unwelcome ringtone beeping on Jimmy’s mobile. At first, Jimmy attempted to ignore it by raising his voice: “Tell me all the _shit things_ this godforsaken planet’s done you for! Tell me exactly what you throw out your Hail Marys and Fuck Yous for.”

The phone wore itself out to silence, only to reactivate itself mere seconds later. It seemed that they would be listening to ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ all night if something wasn’t done about it. Jimmy sighed theatrically, rolling his eyes so far back into his head, he looked like a ghoul. “That’s it,” he bemoaned; “This is you. I don’t care what you say – just _get rid of her_. I’m bored of this shite already.”

With a swallow of emotion Thomas couldn’t properly define, he asked a final, “Are you sure it’s alright?”

“Yes, yes,” Jimmy urged desperately in a storm of flicking embers and ash. “Do it before I do the real damage that needs gettin’ done, yeah?”   

Thomas choked on all the things he thought he should say, instead reaching for the phone and ground his back teeth to dust in lieu of protest. Jimmy was too busy drinking coffee and smoking to notice the way the mobile trembled in his hand as he accepted the call and lifted the device to his ear. With an engineered tone that masked his wobbling nerves, he announced, “Thomas speakin’ for Jimmy,” but was too transfixed by Jimmy’s halo in the moonlight to even properly hear himself.

Much to Thomas’s alarm and curiosity, it was not a female that quixotically intoned, “ _Ey_?” on the other end of the line. The voice was deep and very northern, with syllables that clumped together: “Who’re you?”

“I told you: _Thomas_ ,” Thomas repeated coarsely, an event which made Jimmy glance over at him with an arched brow. “Jimmy’s drivin’. Who’re _you_?”

“Alfred,” the voice said curtly, which gave Thomas an unexpected jolt. For all of Jimmy’s reference to his friend, there was a huge difference between stories, notes on a screen and an actual voice. It was almost as if Alfred was some sort of intangible character come to life from fantasy, given credence by his audible breathiness and the assorted grumbles that it seemed to be muffling. After a tense, standoffish moment, Alfred decided to ask the first question: “Where is he?”

At this, Thomas because rankled, though the protectiveness that cascaded across him was wrapped up in the Pinto’s shadows. “Who wants to know?” he snapped, somehow feeling like it was his responsibility to keep Jimmy insulated from the trouble that had been brewing at home. Heaven knew he’d have liked someone to treat him the same way in kind.

“I-I told you already,” Alfred said ostentatiously. Another pause occurred, through which Thomas inhaled sharply on his cigarette, frowning, when Alfred finally spoke up again: “And he’s been gone too long, and, and – is it _you_ he’s run off with?” There was a very noticeable edge of suspicion growing in Alfred’s demeanor, like he didn’t trust Jimmy to do a single thing without supervision – or free of poor influence.

“I don’t see why it’s your business,” Thomas answered with casual ease, which seemed to be highly entertaining to Jimmy. “ _Or_ Ivy’s, for that matter.”

Jimmy’s amusement subsided, though he was still indulging in both the vices in his hands as he whispered harshly to Thomas, “It’s not Ivy?”

Thomas chuckled, deciding it would give Alfred a spin to openly have an exchange with Jimmy that he wasn’t invited in on. “The other one – your mate,” Thomas said without lowering the mobile. “Alfred, was it?” He said the latter bit with a spark of innocence, like he’d genuinely forgotten the only concrete portion of their conversation thus far, and then returned his attention to Jimmy: “He seems to believe I’ve kidnapped you.”

“Tell him it’s the other way round, and that I’ve got you,” Jimmy answered so easily, Thomas almost chewed through the filter of his cigarette. “And tell him,” Jimmy went on, gesturing with his coffee, which sloshed and churned inside nauseatingly; “And tell him he’s got to stop lettin’ Ivy walk all over him.”

“He wants you to know….” Thomas started to say, smirking at Jimmy even as Alfred abruptly cut him off with a huff: “I _heard_. That’s not what I’m on about.”

“So you’re just borrowin’ that mobile you’re on. For no reason,” Thomas snorted, rolling his eyes towards Jimmy, who caught his glance with a snigger of his own. Alfred mumbled some word of agreement that Thomas largely ignored, his focus too much in Jimmy’s thrall. “Well, you best come up with one. Jimmy’s a very…” Thomas murmured absently, his stomach burning with nighttime terrors as he watched Jimmy throw his head back and laugh through a haze of starlit smoke. “Jimmy’s a very busy young man,” he finished quietly, like he was trying to catch the sound of Jimmy’s heartbeat between the moonbeams.

“Too right!” came a sudden whoop from Jimmy, who was just flinging his deadened cigarette out the window in favor of grabbing Thomas’s hand by the wrist and jerking the mobile to the center of the car. “Too busy for you, Ivy,” he shouted down the line, his grip tightening enough to scald Thomas’s flesh right through his jumper. “Why don’t you go cryin’ to your brother about _that_? See how much he cares? And stop getting poor Alfred to do your dirty work! Ruddy sod’s been through enough with you.” 

Then he slew himself with almost maniacal laughter, a victory slurp of coffee upon his sinful lips as he swerved across the road like a madman. Alfred could be heard sputtering through the mobile, but Thomas only had eyes for Jimmy, unfettered and howling in the wild night. The unpredictability of Jimmy’s moods shot Thomas to such great heights, it was like he was in a constant state of freefall.

“You’re an arsehole, Jimmy Kent!” shrilled a sudden, female voice – a sharp shift from Alfred’s low mumble. “I thought you’d listen to sense if it came from Alfred, but I guess not!” the woman – presumably Ivy – screamed down the line with such intensity, Thomas had to hold the phone a few more inches away, like the distance might save his burning ears. “Still up to your old tricks no matter what,” she ranted on; “Time to think? You just wanted more time to – “

The last thing Thomas expected was for Jimmy to suddenly grab the phone, which he then pressed against the wheel and shouted at as he zigzagged across the empty motorway, still draining his coffee like it was an elixir to bolster his strength. “What d’ya want? A family chat?” he sneered with a nasty streak that had remained buried until then. “It ain’t goin’ to change things, Ivy. And I ain’t comin’ home, neither. Thank yourself for that one.”

“ _Jimmy_ ,” Ivy huffed, growing more upset by Jimmy’s rather callous and unkind treatment. “You broke my heart!”

“And you broke mine! And Alfred’s. And on!” Jimmy groaned, not sounding quite as bent up about it as he might have. He rolled his eyes and sought Thomas out, like the sight of the dark-haired cricketer was his one salvation. “Light us up another one, will you, Thomas?” Jimmy entreated with a pout that was impossible for Thomas to refuse – especially when he added, “Your baby boy’s a bit _tense_.”

Thomas’s throat burned.

“Jimmy, have you started smokin’ again?” Ivy berated, like she needed yet another thing to shame Jimmy for. “Because I swear, if I catch you with another fag in your mouth, Jim –“

Without even bothering to hear the rest, Jimmy flung the phone in Thomas’s general direction, where it rebounded off the blade of his cricket bat and tumbled into the dark recesses at Thomas’s feet. Faint protests from Ivy could be heard wailing from the space beside the red trainers Thomas still wore – like a sort of ironic juxtaposition between who was in Jimmy’s favor, and who was not. Thomas wasn’t allowed to dwell on the meaning of it all for very long, as Jimmy was already lamenting his frustrations about it.

“It’s like she’s stuck on repeat,” Jimmy said, clawing for another cigarette. Thomas held his breath as Jimmy’s swiping fingers danced down his thigh, then over his knee, before they finally managed to grasp the packet. “First thing I do when in London, me,” he told Thomas as he pulled out another cigarette with his teeth, “is to get a new mobile. You can even have that one, if y’like.”

“Don’t worry about it,” murmured Thomas, who was in the process of trying to remember where he’d just stashed his lighter. With a nervous tremble Thomas couldn’t quite control, he leaned back across the Pinto to ignite Jimmy’s fresh cigarette, again transfigured emotionally by the way the little tongue of flame painted Jimmy in Renaissance gold and red. The warmth dancing over his cupped hands wafted from Jimmy’s heavy breathing as he sucked in his first lungful of smoke and then gently exhaled it into the space between them. It was hardly the length of a moment, but Thomas’s senses had been overwhelmed as though he and Jimmy had touched lips and shared something intimate, even as Jimmy pulled back to his side of the car and returned to his pattern of coffee and cigarettes like it was nothing at all. It took Thomas significantly longer to recover as he shuffled back to his usual position, leaning against the passenger door with a cigarette of his own.

“Whatever helps you to get away, then,” Jimmy replied, very focused on his coffee, which seemed to never quite drain. “That’s what I think you should do,” he whispered, like a ghostly hum in the mystic night; “Whatever makes you happy.”

Again, as though a witchy breeze had flown through him to steal his pulse, Thomas started at Jimmy’s dim outline, stamped in blue and stardust as he leaned over the wheel behind a curtain of smoke. _You make me happy_ , Thomas realized with an almost gut-wrenched level of clarity: _Happy like I don’t think I’ve ever been before_. It was something he’d known for days, but the filter of the stars through the windscreen made it certain. The trouble with recognizing such a fact so candidly, and that things had long since stumbled beyond mere longing and desire, was that Thomas was horrifically unsure what to do next. His cross felt like a weight around his neck the longer he looked at Jimmy, certain that he was being shown the very picture of salvation in the blond’s face. Perhaps God had sent Jimmy to him after all, a chauffeur to bear him flying through Oxford and onwards into the eternal English night – someone to deliver him in spite of all his evils. No one ever had to find him: he and Jimmy could be free.

 _Another place, another time_ , thought Thomas with pitiless disparity. _Everythin’ is meant to run away from the likes of me – especially the likes of him_. He gave Jimmy another longing glance as the young driver’s midnight hue shifted from azure to ochre like it was the most unbelievable thing he’d ever seen. As Jimmy started to hum another tune to himself, Thomas tried hard not to take the blond’s level of obliviousness personally, hard as it was. Despite himself, the impossibility of catching Jimmy seemed as likely as sealing the sky in a jar.

It was absolutely unbearable.

 

\--

 

Oxford snuck up on them rather quickly after that, like just another rolling shadow in the night. The radio was still silent, and Sybil and Pancake continued to snooze in the back together, while Thomas and Jimmy practiced a strange ritual of wordlessly chain smoking the rest of Thomas’s cigarettes as they rolled on. It was almost as if they’d been transported from the blackness of the countryside to a whimsical place filled with dots of lantern glow and ancient belfries. Its medieval architecture, even in the morning’s first hour, barely seemed unchanged since the last time Thomas had been there – just as it probably had been since the Middle Ages. He leaned out the Pinto’s window on folded arms and stared up at the city’s tall, gleaming spires with the same awe that had struck him as a young man touring the country for universities. Oxford had seemed like something out of a dream back then, too.

There was an air of nighttime college revelry in the air, a herald to the fast approaching start of September as students began to return for their fall studies. Jimmy drove carefully through the narrow streets with no real direction except for the general ambiance that bubbled in the distance, but eventually just turned onto a silent side street and parked the Pinto. “Where are we even goin’?” Jimmy asked Thomas, who was still staring absently outside like he was also trying to unravel the same question.

“Well,” Thomas said thoughtfully, though he refused to turn around and face Jimmy as he spoke; “If nothin’s changed, then we’d be headin’ for Christ’s Church, which is just through town. Though I s’pose it’s a little… late….”

Thomas added the last bit like a defeatist, though Jimmy probably only heard it as exhaustion, for he was quick to say, “Well, we could just catch a quick kip here and figure the rest out with the help of some sunlight, eh?” He at least seemed to notice Thomas’s lack of enthusiasm, and reached across the way to nudge his older friend a bit. “Besides, I doubt we could wake those two if we screamed blue murder and rocked the car all night,” Jimmy tried with a grin and a quick indication towards the back, where Sybil and Pancake were still dead to the world. Sybil had wilted over sideways, the corner of her forehead touching the arch of Pancake’s shoulder.

Thomas desperately, _desperately_ tried to come up with other ways Jimmy’s suggestion could be achieved without shedding clothing and knotting both their bare bodies into one of the front seats. He tried praying for more resilience, but found the only angel listening was the devil sitting beside him. He then reminded himself that he was cursed.

“I s’pose we might do,” Thomas said nonchalantly, trying to cover his dirty thoughts behind a casual tone. “Like I said: no real _rush_ , yeah? We’ll take our time tomorrow, show you round. I’d like the chance to – ahh – acquaint myself again.”   

  
“I like the sound of that,” Jimmy agreed easily, as if any suggestion Thomas had was bound to be a good one, and partially cranked up his window to demonstrate solidarity with the plan. Then he started fumbling with the lever that tilted his seat back so that he might find a more restful position, though the best he could settle into was something more like a pharaoh lying straight in a coffin, arms crossed abreast and chin cocked proudly upwards. Thomas tried to do the same, but instead just ended up curled against the passenger door, his head cradled in the nook between the headrest and the side of the Pinto. He shuffled and readjusted himself infinite times, but his conscious and his body refused to sync, even as the practice hastened the onset of fatigue. Only heaven knew exactly what contortion he’d settled upon when dreams finally took him.

“Hey, hey – _Thomas_. Oy!”

Thomas was vaguely aware of being jostled from side to side, though sleep kept him in a blind sway even as the sensation became recognizable. Blearily, the blackness faded into the sharp purple of the predawn, which cloaked Jimmy’s lithe, angular shape in the lavender morning. The partying that had been so prevalent when Thomas had fallen asleep had long since quieted, leaving the pair of them in an almost disarming quiet, where only the bravest birds dared chirrup. There was a coolness to the air that shattered his bones, but a soft warmth cupping his cheek that radiated down into even his most minute capillary.

“Thomas,” Jimmy encouraged with a tentative smile that was slowly coming into focus. It was then that Thomas discovered that Jimmy’s fingers were curled around his face, burning away the morning chill. “Are you awake?”

It took Thomas a few moments, but his wit was easily the first function to reignite itself. “I am now,” he grumbled, unhappy about being roused so suddenly, and also to have such an early greeting to the beginning of the end. Clarity defined Jimmy on the driver’s seat, crunched up on his knees so he could lean across the Pinto and touch Thomas.

“Good,” said Jimmy, who still had yet to remove his hand from Thomas’s person. His touch became, in fact, a bit more forward as it slid down Thomas’s jaw and came to rest a bit more firmly around the sculpt of his neck.

Thomas barely had time to draw in an almost painful gulp of air, his eyes jumping to widened rounds beneath lifted brows, as Jimmy leaned across the Pinto and pulled Thomas’s parted lips towards his. Their mouths met in a puff of clouded breath, though Thomas remained frozen and caught unawares even as Jimmy started to kiss him with no reservation in adulation. He trembled as Jimmy’s hands fell over his shoulders, ghosting across the cut of his biceps and the knobs of his elbows, sliding over his wrists and across his lap. “Don’t you feel the same?” Jimmy whispered against Thomas’s plump lips. He bit the bottom one enticingly as he inched a bit more towards Thomas’s half of the Pinto.  

All the obvious affirmations that had been whirling through Thomas seemed impossible to get out of his head, especially as Jimmy cupped Thomas’s chin and nipped at him with tender, unreal lips. Each touch of the mouth felt like a new whirl of a roulette, landing on new flavors and moods that flipped as unpredictably as Jimmy’s every aspect. It pushed through Thomas so many different emotions, he had no idea which was best. Hands landed on angular hip bones and push up beneath Thomas’s jumper with electrified pads.

“B-But Sybil,” Thomas tried to protest, embarrassed that she might suddenly wake up and find them in the throes of something sacred.

“Is takin’ a stroll with Pancake. She were gettin’ a bit cooped up in here,” Jimmy finished for Thomas, his words crashing against Thomas in a wave. “And so was I."

Lust flew up through Thomas, lifting him higher than ever. Thomas almost felt like he had become somebody else, positive there was no way he’d be invited into heaven under any sort of circumstance – and there was no way he could be anywhere else. And yet, as he carefully began to respond with soft kisses of his own, the familiarity of it made it as if the pair of them had been floating in that same place for a long time. Images of where all their locked up secrets might take them somersaulted out of Thomas’s skull, taking him high above the Oxford spires and landing his feet firmly on the ground in sound, red hi-tops. It felt like home, it felt like home, it felt like –

A hollow knocking just beneath Thomas’s eardrum jolted him awake far more abruptly than the white glare of noontime, which reached through the tall, spindled buildings that rose up around them with sharp claws of light. He jumped in his seat, his arms flailing as the Pinto hammered itself into sundrenched brightness. Jimmy was still elongated in a straight angle over the other seat, the only variance since he’d gone to sleep that his chin was now dipped against his chest. Behind him, Sybil and Pancake were just as they had been, curled up together and rumpled by spending a night in the Pinto, not roaming the streets of Oxford. Thomas growled and slammed an angry fist against the door in a rare show of frustrating, hating himself for being so consumed by such a dream. His state of longing was clearly becoming unmanageable.

Another knock, this one much more forceful than the first, resounded against the window beside him. A stranger’s voice called out to him, “Had a rough night, did we?”

Thomas squinted and peered through the window, horrified to find a reflective yellow windbreaker and the bobbie who owned it looming outside the Pinto with a very irritated face. The pleasure of Thomas’s fantasy was quick to drain out at the sight, replaced with his distaste for law officers. The policeman gave the window another condescending rap, a souring punctuation of reality. Grudgingly, he rolled the window down and frowned up at the officer with as sedate an expression as he could muster while still groggy. It wasn’t difficult.

“You can’t park here,” the officer informed Thomas without even waiting for Thomas to speak. He was already reaching into his jacket, presumably for his ticket book. “Have a little too much to drink on our way home, hmm?”

“Not a bit,” Thomas said in a tone that didn’t do much to convince the officer otherwise.

The confrontation did, however, cause Jimmy to stir, and he blearily awakened with no shortage in grumpiness when he assessed the situation. “What’s the problem?” he complained, ornery at the first touch as he twisted around to face Thomas’s side of the car. The mood was quick to spread throughout the vehicle, threatening to rustle Pancake and even the innocently slumbering Sybil, whose nose twitched as she began to wake.

“You’ve left it on the wrong side of the street,” the officer informed Jimmy, stooping so that he could spear the blond with the authoritative glare that smoldered beneath the brim of his helmet. “American models still have got to park like British cars whilst they are _in Britain_ ,” he elaborated, gesturing to either side of the back road to make an example of the fact that Jimmy had left the Pinto backwards in his haste to close his eyes.

“Don’t you have real crime to see about?” Jimmy retorted without regard for the trouble he was whipping up. Jimmy obviously preferred to go down swinging no matter what – even in a match where the odds were stacked against him.

“Jimmy, in case you forgot, this is _Oxford_ ,” Thomas couldn’t help but sigh, aware the situation was quickly deteriorating. “Crime here is about as dire as a vandalized bicycle lock.”

“Then _Inspector Morse_ has lied to me,” Jimmy retorted sarcastically.

The officer glared into the car, his attention flitting from Jimmy to Thomas. “Do I know you from somewhere?” the bobbie suddenly asked, his question thoroughly gut-wrenching to Thomas once he realized the question was being aimed at him. Though he wasn’t one to perspire, a thin sheen of sweat had quickly broken out beneath his hairline as he fretted over what to say. Citing that the officer was probably making some sort of mistake seemed like both the best and most terrible options in one.

Meanwhile, Jimmy was about to open his mouth to say something irrevocable – Thomas could sense it in the air – when Pancake leapt to full attention with a litany of very protective, annoyed barks, not at all pleased to wake up and find his master under fire. Never in his life had Thomas been so grateful to hear the St. Bernard’s hearty woofing, especially since its sudden and robust volume came as quite an unwelcome shock to the bobbie outside. Pancake wormed his way between the two front seats until his girth trapped him, his flopping tail swiping across Sybil until she, too, was wide-eyed. The unexpected presence and size of the dog seemed to give the police officer a bit of a start, and he yelped, taking a very noticeable step back from the Pinto. Pancake kept yelping, and though the sound was reverberating right across Thomas’s cheekbones and flecking his skin with slobber, he couldn’t help but smirk with the same pleasure as someone who had just discovered he had an upper hand. He didn’t even recoil when Pancake stepped onto his thigh with a forward paw, making his authority very clear.

“Easy now,” the officer said, trying to preserve his composure. Pancake wriggled more and snapped his teeth, which startled the copper back a full two steps. He put on airs of adjusting his uniform, very noticeably unconcerned with writing them up for Jimmy’s thoughtless parking offense. “Just… be mindful of it, right?” the officer said, pursing his lips at Thomas and Pancake, who were both crowding his vantage of the Pinto’s interior. He gave them one last, penetrating glower, like he was trying to come to terms with something, then cleared his throat and strode off very quickly.   

“Good boy,” said Thomas, rubbing Pancake in a rewarding way he hadn’t dared to try before. Something about the way Pancake was barking at the policeman’s retreating back sounded to Thomas like it might be translated along the lines of: “ _And stay gone!_ ”

Jimmy was starting the Pinto again, but Thomas was too busy wrangling Pancake, who had apparently decided that leaning in Thomas’s direction wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Perhaps the St. Bernard had concluded that Thomas’s interaction with the cop was a laudable defense of Jimmy, and had decided maybe Thomas could be trusted. Then again, Thomas also thought himself certifiably mad for putting so much stock in what an animal thought – like there was some sort of opinion to be won from a dog – even as Pancake started to rumble with contented growls under Thomas’s stroking fingers. He almost missed the rumble of the Pinto as it started to sputter along the cobblestones, moving forward, but to where – no one had said.

Oxford was a different place by daylight. The gothic spires had become less haunting, and more like a fairy story. Thomas still felt he was travelling through a vortex of time, disarmed by the little bits that seemed to fade out of the everyday scenery like imprinted memories that had drifted through his Oxford like ghosts that had climbed out of his opened skull to repopulate the town he had long since forgotten. The ticking of every clock in town seemed to click at an abnormally loud rate, like they were all aware that Oxford’s prodigal son had returned, and his doom or salvation was nigh. Every now and then, Thomas had to do a double-take, eerily positive he’d just glimpsed someone the past had left far behind him, only to look closer and find nothing but empty pavement and strange students whirling by in their spooling gowns.   

“So tell me about this old bird of yours,” Jimmy pried conversationally as he motored through town with direction from Thomas. Only Sybil noticed that both men tried to catch her eye in the rearview mirror before saying any more, but she kept herself out of it with un upward twirl of both wrists.

The closer they got to Christ’s Church, the more decidedly Thomas did _not_ want to revisit such things, but Jimmy was particularly cajoling with his interest. Eventually, Thomas finally gave in and supplied as vague a story about the whole thing as he could. “It were all the cricket,” he said with a trace of annoyance. “Or it started with that, anyway. No one wanted to be caught around the most unpopular bloke on campus after all that, so what d’ya really think happened?”

“You got dumped over _that_?” Jimmy grimaced, almost offended.

“Wanderin’ eyes weren’t a helpful factor, neither,” Thomas groused, ruffling Pancake’s fur more ardently. He was pleasantly surprised to find it nearly as cathartic as Pancake seemed to. “Lost me value without it in more ways than one. Son of a preacher man ain’t quite so grand,” he shrugged nonchalantly, though any sourness about it was easily replaced with an inner excitement that Jimmy seemed to find him blameless in the whole affair.

“Yeah, well, ain’t any good songs ‘bout cricketers, neither,” Jimmy opined. “None of that is _who_ you are, right?”

“Who I _am_ is naïve and stupid,” Thomas said flatly, growing more involved with Pancake the longer they dwelled on the topic. Bravely wrapped his arms around Pancake’s neck, Thomas found the nerve to say, “Ain’t really changed much. Still easily blown away on hopes that usually scatter in the wind right quick. Won’t make that mistake again.” His nose itched as he pressed his chin against Pancake, and he sneezed. “Especially when I walk right back into it.”

“Are you… lookin’ to fix it?” Jimmy asked with a pointed look in Thomas’s direction. They were stopped at crosswalk as a stream of students ambled across. “Is that what all this is really about?” he asked with a slightly derisive snort. “Wow, did I ever have the wrong end of the stick, then.”

“No!” Thomas shouted so suddenly, Pancake accidentally scratched into Thomas’s trousers and banged Thomas’s chin when he flinched in surprise. In the settling moments, Jimmy gunned the engine with a bit more speed than was permitted in town, and Thomas tried to explain as best he could. “I told you, I needed some legal advice and this is the best opportunity I got,” he said tightly, fearfully. “I need someone I trust. Or at least – someone I used to.”

Sensing the tension from the backseat, Sybil chose then to interject: “If it’s any help, Thomas, Mary’s fiancé’s got an Oxford law degree as well.” She paused, waiting for a relaxation that never manifested itself in Thomas, before she added, “Y’know, in case this lead turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I’m sure I can manage,” Thomas grumbled, tearing himself away from Pancake so that he could press himself against the door and brood in peace. “If there’s one thing I can count on, it’s that findin’ me crawlin’ back on me knees is sure to be all it takes to at least be heard.”

“You’re better’n that,” Jimmy decided stodgily, though his increasingly haphazard driving was a contrast for such lackluster. “Don’t get on the ground for nobody, I say.”

Thomas wasn’t sure if it was helpful or not that Sybil agreed very heartily with Jimmy’s comment, because he had chaffed and burned his knees on the floor at Jimmy’s feet already. He was at least glad that Jimmy’s recklessness was going to get them to Christ’s Church faster. At this point, there was no sense in dragging it out any longer, especially with Jimmy’s frustratingly unreadable behavior. The vulnerable sap in him wanted to believe that it was the same sort of protectiveness and jealousy that Pancake so ardently displayed, but after verbalizing all the stupidity that had had befallen him with Philip, the practical person that had come to rule Thomas’s life very staunchly chastised him for daring to think it. It built up within him at such an emotionally violent rate, Thomas had to suddenly beg Jimmy to stop the Pinto.

The little car screeched to a dangerous halt almost immediately, and Jimmy sent him a rankled grimace as Thomas started gathering up his cricket bat and unbuckling his seatbelt, the clasp of which was buried beneath Pancake’s girth. “Just – just let me out here. I can walk the rest of the way,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. He was slain with a need to get out and be on his own, knowing full well that trying to talk to Philip in his current state was sure to end in failure. He had to clear his head – had to clear it of _Jimmy_ and all the loping puppies and paper airplanes that zoomed around Thomas’s every thought of him _._

Kicking the door open, Thomas practically leapt onto the tarmac, bat in hand. He was so nervous, even Pancake’s whinnying added to his overall distress as he flung the door closed and trod around the rear of the car to the pavement. By the time he had, Jimmy had completely rolled down his window, coasting the Pinto at a pace that matched Thomas’s rather hurried pacing. “Oy, Thomas. Oy!” Jimmy called after him, leaning heavily out the window with only have a care for whatever was in front of the Pinto as it edged forward. “You haven’t got to go on this one alone, y’know?

Thomas did his best to ignore Jimmy, though the task was impossible, especially as he stared at the ground and monitored every step he took in Jimmy’s red hi-tops. Even with all time they’d been spending together, and all of Sybil’s little hints, he still had no idea what Jimmy was looking for, or what might be found if he had been bold enough to find out. _Keep control of it_ , Thomas told himself resolutely as the Pinto continued to putter in his peripheral. Their slow progress down the street was causing a serious backup of traffic behind the Pinto. “Just take Sybil out for lunch or sommat, will you?” Thomas said tersely. “This is what I came here to do, and I’ve got to see it through.”

“Yeah, but,” Jimmy pressed, deaf to all the car horns that were building a great cacophony behind him; “Now you’re here with _me_. It’s different than before.” His gentle tone was torn apart by a litany of shrilling bicycle bells, which clanged angrily as a row of cyclists darted around the Pinto in billowing Oxford robes. One of them, in a rather un-academic fashion, extended two rude fingers at the Pinto, to which Jimmy responded with a list of curse words the Oxford dictionary probably didn’t even define.  

At this, Thomas came to a full stop and turned to face the road. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, the cherry bat dangling from the hand that was tucked beneath his armpit: “Yeah? And how’s that?” Thomas asked with a bit more black ice than he’d intended. “I haven’t asked more of you than this. You’ve done more than I could have thought to, and I’m grateful, but _please_. I – I – this is my business.” He started walking again, this time with a much livelier gait. His determination to fulfill his quest was only enhanced by his need to tear himself away from the exhaust of hopelessness that the Pinto kicked up in its wake. Reality was a crushing, stifling thing.

“Well, it’s my business too, now!” Jimmy shouted in one last, desperate attempt to keep Thomas from running off into the city’s dizzying parks and promenades. “We’re friends now, ain’t we? Friends help each other!”

“You can’t help me with this, okay!?” Thomas shouted with so much agitation, Jimmy was actually taken aback. He toned himself down a bit, though his voice was still dark as he tried to amend: “If we’re friends, you’ll understand that.”

But Jimmy was less than sympathetic to Thomas’s rejection. Instead, he sucked his teeth in annoyance and slapped the door of the Pinto as he reached inside to crank the radio to a volume so obnoxious, it nearly blew out the little car’s tinny speakers. “S’cuse me for givin’ a shit. I thought we’d got more’n that,” Jimmy shouted over the bumping music; “S’pose I were just bloody wrong about that, too.” Then he jammed on the accelerator and sent the Pinto rocketing down the street in a fever pitch of squealing tires, burning rubber and rock ‘n’ roll.   

_I want a new mistake – lose is more than hesitate!  
_ _Do you believe it in your head?_

Thomas’s feet creaked to a halt the moment the Pinto flew off, stuck with the tardy epiphany that this image of the rusty little car might be the last time he ever saw it. Today was supposed to be the day that he took his life back, but he could only feel the pavement crumbling beneath his feet as the Pinto ran a red light at the end of the street, screaming into a roundabout with harrowing danger.

_I can go with the flow!  
_ _Do you believe it in your head?_

It was only after the roaring music and the vanishing Pinto had been swallowed up into the depths of town that Thomas realized he’d been holding a solitary hand up, lingering just a moment before a wave of farewell.

 

\--

 

Thomas wasn’t sure why he had expected Christ’s Church college to have changed even a single brick when he finally came upon it again, but there it was, grand and magnificent as it ever was – a crowning jewel in Oxford’s ornate campus. He hesitated on the edge of the quad, terrified that the milling students would all somehow be able to smell him for the disgrace he was. As it was, he knew he bore a strikingly out-of-place guile, not dressed in robes or a tie, and more like the ragtag cricketer even Oxford’s poshest couldn’t totally wipe clean. But as he took a resolute step forward, the crunch of Jimmy’s red trainer in the graveled walkway filled him with an unexpected sense of bravery. The trainers heralded his approach towards the library with a measured count of strength, like perhaps Jimmy had been tagging along after all. It was all he could do to try and soothe his blunder upon exiting the Pinto in such a skittish panic. He tried to hammer in the idea that it was safer for everyone involved if he just got back to doing things on his own. It was what he’d been used to, anyway.

For all of Philip’s lesser qualities, he had always been a bit of a scholarly elitist, often found buried beneath stacks of books in the library, and Thomas seriously doubted such a creature-habit would have abated in Philip’s postgraduate years. Though the flow of library visitors was an unending ebb and flow, Thomas had to steel himself with another pause when he reached the Georgian building. The problems that had been so easily buried somewhere in the Pinto’s boot were suddenly piling up around him like luggage he forgotten he had. “Time to abandon hope,” he mumbled to himself as he gripped the cricket bat and gave his cross a last stroke for fortitude. Then he let himself be swept up into the sea of students and university visitors alike, and went inside.

Just as with The House’s exterior, its interior hadn’t changed much either. Beyond the foyer, the inner nooks and crannies of the library, all stuffed to the gills with more books than anyone could ever hope to read in a lifetime, presented Thomas with an antiquated maze of art and literature that all somehow seemed inadequate in any sort of knowledge Thomas might have hoped to garner there. He passed through the white archways almost as if he was in search of some rare tome only he would know how to find – that is, until a familiar, husky chuckle echoed from further down the way. Almost as if all the sunlight pouring through the arched windows was being absorbed by that singular, irresistible laugh, Thomas looked up to find Philip at the end of a long study table, flanked by a trio of fellow students who each seemed to hang on his every word. With the same magnetic draw, Thomas drifted towards the scene, completely numb to anything but how the musty air tasted like fear.

“Oh – Oh my, is that who I think it is?”

A hush fell when Philip noticed Thomas, which was far sooner than he had anticipated. Much like the other students gaggling around the handsome law student, Thomas was stifled to silence, waiting in anticipation for whatever Philip might say next. He stood, still just as handsome as Thomas remembered him – perhaps even more so. There was a dangerous merriment twinkling beneath his half-lidded eyes, just as disarming as the distinctive contour of his smile, which had a propensity to curl into a most enticing, plump shape beneath one cheek whenever he smiled. He was giving just such a smile to his companions, speaking almost as if he was quizzing them on a poet laureate, or a philosophical nuance: “Do any of you remember Thomas Barrow? At least one of you must be just old enough to.”

The students looked back and forth from one another. It was difficult to tell whether they actually knew the answer, or if they were all afraid to say. Wryly, Thomas supposed Philip had also retained his quiet breed of dominance over a group. He made sure to stand with surety, especially as Philip rounded the table like he meant to give Thomas a proper greeting.

“Oh, just look at you,” Philip gushed in a way that made Thomas’s insides squelch beneath a heart being wildly swung about on a fraying rope. Before Thomas could stop it, Philip was standing in front of him, a hand on each shoulder as they each got the

 first look of one another either had had since Thomas had left. It was alarmingly comfortable, and made it dangerously easy for Thomas to forget all the upsetting things that Philip had done to him. “Just as fit as ever, seems like,” he said, giving Thomas a very subtle once-over, his eyes ostensibly lingering on the pommel of the cricket bat – though Thomas felt more like he was being publicly stripped and put on display like market meat.

“Well, it’s not like Oxford is the only place in the world that’s got a cricket team,” Thomas said thinly, hating the hollowness of his own voice. He decided to cut to the chase, knowing there was danger in letting Philip work his dark charms on him. “It’s just… I need a favor,” Thomas said, aware of how pathetic he must have come off. He forced his gaze down to the floor, where the blade of his bat pointed out the reassuring comfort of Jimmy’s shoes. “I thought you might be a help – that we could have a chat about it,” he mumbled quietly. “For old time’s sake.”

“Well, well, well,” Phillip pottered, his own gaze following Thomas’s to the red trainers poking out from beneath his greyish trousers. “It certainly looks like you do.” He shifted so that he could slide an arm around Thomas’s shoulders, though Thomas could feel the familiar way his fingers liked to coast down over his trapezius as they started to walk away together. “Let’s have that chat, shall we?” he suggested, almost completely ignoring the group of fellows waiting for him at the table. “I won’t be a minute,” he called back to them, though Thomas severely doubted Philip had any plan to return in the near future. He hoped that at least boded well for his own machinations.

“How’s Manchester?” Philip asked conversationally, sounding almost interested – though Thomas also knew that Philip wouldn’t have let his dead body be caught floating down the Mersey, either. “That _is_ where you went back to in the end, right?”

“If it pleases you to know it,” Thomas said, making painful efforts to sound indifferent. It wasn’t quite the same as when he tried to seem casual around Jimmy: this was a far more dangerous game, with far more on the line than petty things like happiness or his heart.

“And your sister? It was a sister, right?” Philip continued genially as he led the way through the library, heading for a more private nook reserved for private study groups. Once upon a time, Thomas would have leapt at the prospect to be hidden away in a public place like Oxford’s most famous library, but now he just felt like he was smothering himself in his own follies.

“She’s fine – and Phyllis as well,” Thomas said carefully, already nervous for the inevitable question. Phyllis was his sister’s best friend, who Thomas had often felt was more a far more nurturing role model than his actual relation. Not that it was entirely his sister’s fault that she was their father’s favorite, and therefore the one who Thomas had constantly been measured against even as an adult.

Philip pulled out a pair of chairs beside one another and invited Thomas to sit with him. “And your father?” Philip asked at last, his gaze penetrating through Thomas as if he already knew what the answer was.

“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about,” Thomas said quietly, perching at the edge of the chair with only the cricket bat to keep him properly balanced. The rough pad of one finger stroked its pommel as the whole sordid affair blazed through his head. The argument bled into his vision like it was a technicolor reel, doomed to loop through his skull until the day he died, and thundered through without the censorship that his happy days with Jimmy, Pancake and Sybil had provided. Instead, Thomas heard the fateful words that had sent him flying into a fury like he had never succumbed to – one built up after years of torture and ridicule at his pious father’s behest. The words that had sent him raging through the house with boiled blood – the words that had found his hands ripping his prized, cherry red cricket bat from its place of honor over the mantle to chase his father down the front hall – to take that one, final, hellbent swing of vengeance.   

Thomas nervously rearranged his hands on the bat, the spaces between his fingers suddenly gummy with the elusive bloodstains he could never quite clean. The gulp that expanded in his throat lodged itself in his throat for a few painful seconds before he had the wherewithal to finally admit aloud what he’d done. “He wasn’t dead when I left him,” Thomas whispered hoarsely, certain Philip would be able to fill in the blanks. “I cracked him one just so he’d – so he’d _stop_.”

“You’ve done _what_?” Philip gaped, his polite airs sucked aridly into the quiet atmosphere around them. He gripped the table and leaned in closer to Thomas, hissing, “You mean, you fucking _murdered_ him?” It wasn’t like Philip to swear.

“Well, I don’t think so!” Thomas yelped, though he knew that he’d left the man to die in his scramble to escape the wreckage. Every snippet of news broadcast he’d caught on the Pinto’s radio – every sordid detail he’d managed to throw off the airwaves in the nick of time – had only been confirmed when Tom had so candidly asked if he’d _heard_.

He hadn’t heard: but he knew.

“I weren’t _tryin’_ to. He whacked his skull on the way down, anyway,” Thomas was quick to say in a rough mutter, torn between pride and shame over the whole ordeal. “And I at least tried 999 from a phone box before I left. S’not like I wanted it that way.”

“Well, then, that’s what matters. Plausible deniability,” said Philip, leaning back with his hands steepled beneath his chin. Still, the shock of such an admission from Thomas was evident in the roundness of his eyes, which had become dulled of their usual, wry twinkle. Thomas had a vague suspicion that even Philip was flabbergasted that Thomas would do such a thing, considering that Thomas had always been the one eager to please back when their relationship had been palatable. But then again, that had been half of the trouble: Philip never gave Thomas credit for half the things he was capable of.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be so easy to tell that to a judge,” Thomas groused. “It don’t take a law degree to know a thing like _that_.”

“You always did have a penchant for the dramatic, I’ll say that,” Philip replied with a small crinkle of his lips – a sardonic little smile of indifference. Then he reached forward to drop a hand on Thomas’s knee, stroking familiar little rings across the patella. “Don’t worry, darling. An intern could argue you out of this one.”

A shudder of warmth sunk through the fabric of Thomas’s trousers and radiated up his leg, drawing him into a forgotten sense of comfort. “But I can’t just have anyone. I need someone I can trust,” Thomas told Philip with a faint glimmer of their old fire; “I’ve got to have _you_.”

“Ah, I see now,” Philip murmured dangerously. The hand lingering on Thomas’s knee snuck up a few inches more, his increased forwardness masked by the table they sat behind. “Why don’t you tell me all about it, and then we’ll see what there is to be done, hmm?” A distinctive purr flavored Philip’s request, and it took Thomas like witchcraft.  

So Thomas relayed the whole sorry tale, which picked up when he had returned to Manchester after the Oxford debacle. He’d been unduly depressed about the whole thing, which his father empathized with on a superficial level – though it also came coupled with crude disappointment that Thomas had flubbed his cricket career, or, as Father Barrow called it: ‘the one thing he’d ever been good at.’ The whole thing left Thomas drifting through Manchester like a Mersey ghost, only halfheartedly pursuing his studies in town as he tried to make sense of how upended everything in his life had become. One moment, he’d been in the middle of a torrid and erotic love affair with the son of a duke, and the next, that same man was ridiculing him for the tendencies they shared. Thomas had watched Philip flounce off with a revolving door of Oxford ladies, while simultaneously packing his cases to head home and face the music.

“Of course, me dad never had to hear the details of it. The obvious bits were bad enough,” Thomas said to Philip, certain that a fight in the middle of the library over such famous local gossip was not going to win Thomas the results he wanted. Philip may have been manipulative, but Thomas was just as practiced at the game. “I had someone else to talk to about it anyway,” Thomas explained, again hoping he wasn’t triggering any of Philip’s moods as he spoke. “Y’know, someone who ain’t hidden in a confessional and that.”

His confidante had been a young man in the army, whose name was Edward Courtenay. A firebomb in Afghanistan had made him unfit for duty, so he’d come home to Manchester to stay with his aunt and uncle. Thomas had met Edward in a class they shared at the local university, and they became quick friends – friends that very soon learned to hold hands and kiss. Friends that eventually snuck through backdoors and in between one another’s sheets to share their secrets. Friends that thought they were much cleverer than they were.

Even after three years of love in the dark, when they were inevitably caught out, the solution had been simple. “Send the boys to church,” had been the mutual agreement between everyone but the two main parties involved. Thomas had sat through his father’s sermons rolling his eyes, or practicing his bowling form when stuck in confession; Edward, who was already prone to gnarled moods leftover from his tour of duty, was unfortunately much more easily swayed by the fear of the God. He insisted to Thomas they needed to beg for mercy for their eternal souls, and Thomas had thrown the entire idea out with the rubbish. A week later, Edward was dead – forearms slashed from wrist to elbow – and knew exactly who to blame.

“And you know that firsthand?” Philip asked in a very clinical tone. His wandering hand had stilled, clearly not very excited by a story that happily placed Thomas’s mouth on someone else’s.

“Well, he didn’t have to say it,” Thomas huffed, tapping his finger against the incriminating cricket bat in nervous agitation. “It were obvious what damage were done. Anyone who knew me father – or heard some of the shite he’d say in service – could say the same.”

“Your neighbors would all agree?” Philip pressed as his hand made a similar breech up the length of Thomas’s thigh, squeezing enough to make Thomas suck in a very controlled hiss. His brain was starting to jumble, now wavering between the ugliness of his history and the ease with which Philip had always been able to soothe him with his practiced touches.

“Not the whole street, mind,” Thomas managed to say through a long exhalation. “But there were a few who knew what the real state of things had been like. Knew how my father was about… y’know….” He trailed off as Philip made a brazen pass at the crease of Thomas’s trousers, and Thomas could only gasp, “Y’know, our sort.”

“Meaning?” Philip wondered with deceptive innocence as he teased Thomas’s libido with an arcing thumb. In Thomas’s numbed state, it was difficult to fully ascertain what Philip was insinuating. Shards of Philip’s inflammatory speech against him were being dulled against a sensation that had been quiet for felt like ages. The suppression he’d endured in Jimmy’s presence was completely unhelpful.

A strangled sigh escaped him. He bit his lip until blood dotted a canine.  

Philip eased away, leaning back in his chair and reassuming his former position as if he hadn’t moved, weaving his fingers beneath his round chin once more. He perched an ankle atop his knee and spread his elbows out onto the tips of either armrest, and said, “It’s a fair bit more troublesome if you haven’t at least got a good character witness, you know. Or evidence suggesting it was provoked.”

“I’ve got some friends who might do,” Thomas told him quickly, like the faster he got the information out, the faster it would leave him alone. “And I heard Edward’s aunt found a note with – with him.” Here, Thomas inhaled deeply, pretending like he was having a smoke; he had thought this would be much easier than it was turning out to be. He’d only been thinking about it nonstop – nonstop until he’d climbed into a rusty Pinto just outside Sheffield and quickly forgot the world outside of it.

“Do you have it?”

The question skittered by Thomas and faded somewhere beyond the next shelf of books. Thoughts of Jimmy’s Pinto came screeching along like that final image he had of the car when he’d jumped out in such a panic, and left him wondering where in Oxford he’d got off to – if he was even still in Oxford at all. He wondered if perhaps he and Sybil really had gone out to lunch, and if so, where? Maybe they were worried about him – maybe even discussing him. Would either of them miss him at all – would Jimmy? _God, not after all that fuss,_ Thomas drifted away thinking. _We met, we laughed, and then we said goodbye – and that were that_.

A hand on his thigh momentarily triggered a flicker of dear memories that had imprinted Jimmy upon him forever. The beach and the way Jimmy wrestled with Pancake whenever they took pit stops; the night they’d laid on either side of the Saint Bernard, staring up at the ceiling as though it was high above even the drifting clouds in the sky; every song on the radio as they played in Jimmy’s teeth; Sybil’s huge sunglasses hiding the eyes Thomas longed to collapse into. Hadn’t it all been wonderful? Conflicted nights, carefree days and all?

“The letter,” said a voice that wasn’t Jimmy’s at all. Recognizing Philip’s timbre brought Thomas crashing back into the library, where he had to reorient himself as if he’d just been yanked from a pleasant sleep. Philip was stroking Thomas’s leg familiarly again, his voice almost soothing as he reiterated his question: “Do you have it?”

The debris of reality came crashing back down over Thomas’s head. “No,” he sighed, not even sure he should admit to Philip that he barely even had a glimpse of what it had said. No one wanted him near the Courtenay family after Edward had passed: just as Thomas blamed his father, Edward’s aunt and uncle equally blamed Thomas himself for the disaster.

“Hmm, well,” Philip hummed, the arc of his sweeping hand growing longer as he leaned back in towards Thomas with that same disregard for boundaries. “That _does_ make things a bit more challenging.”

“Don’t toy about with me, Philip,” Thomas said tightly, though it wasn’t nearly as warding as he’d intended it to be. Much to the contrary, it came off as more of a low growl, but the sort that might have been counted as playful. Even as he tried to regain control, Philip’s acquaintance with the contours of his thigh made it difficult when the pleasantness continued to outweigh anything sensible. “I know you’re good at what you do, and right now – “ Thomas tried to square his shoulders, but ended up wilting in his chair a bit as he whispered harshly – “I really, really _need_ you to be.”

“Oh and I can be,” Philip insisted, his hand wandering back up to Thomas’s hip, tugging a belt loop before plunging into a more sordid adventure. He reacquainted himself with the details of Thomas he’d once pushed away with a touch that clearly hadn’t forgotten: “I _shall_.”  

Thomas let out an ambiguous groan that loitered somewhere between discomfort and yearning. Just because of the way things had exploded between them didn’t mean there were those troublesome little moments where Philip came back to haunt him – the visitation of times that had been quite pleasant between them, and Thomas’s naïve, romantic heart had believed that his first love would also be his last. But considering the foul luck that had plagued him since, and the likelihood that the one he really wanted would probably be living it up in the middle of Piccadilly Circus by nightfall, it was easy to fall back into the trap of familiar comfort.

Except for when Philip became a little _too_ forward, the reverie was quickly smashed. Thomas flew backwards in his chair, its legs scraping with an echoing scream across the floor as he shoved away. The cricket bat slipped from his hands as he did so, landing against the hardwood floor with a disruptive clatter. Gripping the chair’s arms, Thomas fought to settle himself, horrified he hadn’t quite caught onto Philip’s little game.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Thomas,” Philip frowned, lifting his chair and gracefully redepositing it in the space Thomas had so quickly cleared between them. “Don’t pretend you’re not just as happy to see me as I am you.”

“You know that’s not why I’m here,” Thomas said tightly, hating the part of himself that still wished it was. “And I’m not so stupid,” he said with slow clarity; “At least _one_ of those girls you were with earlier is surely your current flavor of the month.”

A laugh that was somehow both cruel and polite danced over Philip’s perfect lips. “You wouldn’t be incorrect,” he affirmed with a sordid quirk to his mouth. “But we wear perfume during the day. The nighttime is for scents and pleasures of another sort.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Thomas snapped, though he was already imagining the one lad who had been sitting with Philip’s entourage when he’d arrived. Regardless of whether or not he was going about it the wrong way, Thomas was fairly certain what kind of twisted dynamic Philip was gardening there. It was almost disgustingly similar to the unpleasantness he had known through his own Oxford days.

“Oh, I don’t quite think you’re in a position to negotiate,” Philip countered, bending forward like a leering serpent. “If you’d like my help, it’s not going to be pro bono. I’m not cheap.”

“Neither am I,” Thomas reeled as Philip grasped the arms of Thomas’s chair and jerked it close enough that their knees became entangled. But the words of protest were the best he had to defend himself with, because Philip’s proximity was seizing all the frustrations he’d been strangling around Jimmy, urging him to just soothe the ache and put it behind him. A darkness within him whispered that it would only be for a little while, and that the situation was win-win. And Philip had only become that much more attractive with age, his jaw a bit more defined, with a thin dusting of stubble accentuating his Leyendecker-like visage.

“Besides,” Philip went on, drawling luxuriously close to Thomas’s cheek, “You were always my best friend, Thomas. Not like any of the others. Of course I want to be there for you.” His teeth nipped an earlobe as he murmured: “I’ve _missed_ you.”  

“I-If we’re still friends,” Thomas started to say, though he his eyes had already slipped closed as Philip’s cologne spiced his nostrils and clouded his air.

“You’ll let me be on top,” Philip finished into his ear, his free hand folding itself around the angle of Thomas’s finely contoured cheekbone, turning their mouths so that they were aligned with one another. Then they were kissing, and Philip’s stray fingers were nursing the unchecked desire that had been pent up within the black-haired cricketer for the last week. Thomas almost completely forgot they were in such a public space, though the corner they occupied was untraversed and more quiet by even library standards. His maudlin career had been so exhausting, the relaxation that came with just letting go and forgetting all of it was something he hated to admit was welcome. It was sweet and ugly and exhilarating.

The taste was quick to sour. Thomas flinched and shifted, though Philip followed the slide of his lips with continued ardor. Beneath the table, Thomas shoved at Philip’s hand, not at all interested in being cajoled into sex just because it was convenient. The severity of his problems was quite immense, but not so much that the solution came at the cost of his pride. He grabbed at the hand Philip had plastered to the side of his face and tried to rip it away, though the clenching of his fingers only gave Philip incentive to dig his more tightly into Thomas’s cheek. He kissed Thomas more fervently, while Thomas tried to tear himself away with muffled complaints. A fear that the wrong person would catch them suddenly hounded Thomas as violently as the illness that was churning in his belly.

But as Thomas’s eyes darted to the end of the bookshelf that served as their cover, he found himself met with the most gut-wrenching horror he could have ever hoped to have found. Standing there, with one hand resting on the bookcase like he had just swerved around it, was none other than Jimmy, whose lips were parted in a flabbergasted, disgusted twist. His cheeks were hot, and there was a distressed wrinkle in his brow as he let out an agitated groan and pushed off the bookcase. Before Thomas had a chance to fully disengage himself from Philip to explain, Jimmy had already whirled on his heel and stomped off with a tread that echoed so harshly through the library, it was like the wood was literally splintering beneath every footfall.

“Do you know that little twink?” Philip wondered idly, completely unfazed by the sense of urgency that had driven Thomas away. He was fortunate Thomas was too distracted to have heard, or he might have found himself with a crooked nose and a shiner.

“Tom were right,” Thomas was saying instead, nearly toppling his chair over as he stumbled to his feet. “Askin’ you for anything were a shite plan.” Awkwardly, he groped for his cricket bat, which was lost on the floor, juxtaposed between Philip’s leather Versaces. Thomas didn’t care that he accidentally whacked Philip in the shin with the bat when he retrieved it, and hoped the welt would make Philip think about all the crap he’d ever put him through for at least another week after he’d gone.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, don’t tell me you’re goin’ to actually _follow_ that kid,” Philip called after Thomas as Thomas started to urgently take his leave without another concern for Philip, who was too self-involved to risk his reputation over anything Thomas had just shared with him. Thomas couldn’t even be bothered to serve Philip an explanation – firstly, because Philip didn’t deserve one – but mostly because his stomach was in tatters, his heart a misshapen hole that pulsed with cutout desperation. Perhaps no one in the world but Thomas had seen in Jimmy’s face what he just had, but Thomas knew he’d have died for just one more word with the blond – one last chance to ask ‘ _Are you just like me, blue eyes?’_

He tore out of the library and back out onto the quad, which spread out beneath another fantastic sky that was fluffed with clouds and honeyed sun drops. As Thomas stood on the library’s front steps, all he could quickly deduce was that Jimmy must have taken off in a mad sprint, as there was no sign of the blond anywhere nearby. A lesser man might have given up there, and gone back inside with a drooping tail, but Thomas didn’t even hesitate or look back as he leaped forward, hustling up to the first student that crossed his path.

“Have you seen a blond lad out on a run?” Thomas asked the startled young woman. “He’s not very tall – might’ve had a great St. Bernard with him?”

She didn’t give him much more than a hum of uncertainty, so Thomas abandoned her in favor of chasing down another passerby with the same question: “Blond lad on a run? Maybe with a huge dog?”

He zigzagged across the lawn, repeating the query until he finally got a vague hint from a mousey professor-type, who nearly collapsed beneath the weight of the books he was holding as he tried to indicate the direction of the street. “I’d just been coming down the road when I saw a young man get into a car with a large dog _inside_ it,” the professor told Thomas in a voice that trembled.

Thomas’s soul was practically zooming down the pavement, even as his physical form remained long enough to demand: “What sort of car? Was it a Pinto?”    

The professor seemed completely befuddled by Thomas’s question, and could only recall that the car seemed vintage and very close to falling apart. Thomas was off before the old man even had a chance to punctuate his sentence.

Though it had been years since Thomas had last been in Oxford, he still remembered the layout of the city fairly well. After the time he’d spent with Jimmy, if Thomas had to guess what Jimmy’s first move would have been to manage his temper, he could almost guarantee it would be some activity spent with Pancake. With that in mind, Thomas took a gamble and started off for the nearest river, certain that Jimmy would have quickly sought out an idyllic spot to let Pancake play.

The bold sprint that had burned all of Thomas’s initial energy died out rather quickly, but he didn’t stop to hire a car or any other sort of vehicle that might have hastened his journey. Something about walking under the dying afternoon seemed like a part of his penance. Again and again, he replayed the crushed way Jimmy had looked at him in the library, hating himself every second for lying to Jimmy about who he was. “I should have told you straight away,” Thomas told the wind rushing down the sloping rooftops above as he walked, hoping it might somehow deposit the sentiment wherever Jimmy was hiding. “I should have told you everything.”

He had been following Merton Street without luck, even when it careened into the High Street. Thomas took a sharp right towards the boathouse, so determined that he’d find Jimmy by the water, he believed it more with every step. He could already see the bridge crossing, and set on towards it like all the answers were at the bottom of the Cherwell. As the city caught fire under yet another sunset, Thomas searched desperately for any sign of the Pinto, or even the faintest hint of Pancake’s barking, the clack-clack of a skateboard on pavement. Passing by a sunken car park just short of the bridge, Thomas stopped to peer through the wrought iron fencing. He could have sworn….

With his cricket bat tucked under one armpit, Thomas curled his hands around two of the black bars like a child trying to catch sight of he wasn’t supposed to. Unmistakably, there was Jimmy’s Pinto, parked with its tail bumper facing the street, though it was hard to tell if Jimmy had just left the car there before taking Pancake down to the bankside, or if he’d perhaps decided to take a stroll through the nearby botanical gardens. He was in such a hurry, Thomas didn’t even bother to seek out the gate leading into the corralled space, and instead slid his cricket bat through the bars before athletically hoisting himself up on the crossbar to shimmy up and over. He dropped down onto the tarmac with wobbly legs and black crust from the fencing streaking his white jumper, but he barely noticed. It didn’t even matter to him if he ran over to the Pinto and found it empty: he would wait, he would wait – he would wait with the words stuck in his throat forever.

Still, he took his time nearing the car, like he was approaching a skittish animal. The sinking sun pushed a long shadow from beneath the Pinto and across Thomas’s shape as he neared. It didn’t take long for him to establish that Jimmy was brooding inside with Pancake, which was almost a more troubling discovery than the idea of Jimmy blowing off steam with some sort of physical activity instead. The car had been rearranged so that most of the luggage had been redistributed to the boot and the passenger seat, allowing both Jimmy and Pancake plenty of space in the backseat. Jimmy slouched on the bench with his arms crossed, while Pancake flopped across his lap. The look on his face was nothing short of pure lividity, a slow burning sort of anger that made Thomas somewhat afraid to get any closer to the Pinto. As it was, he knew Jimmy hadn’t noticed him – or worse, was very pointedly ignoring him. He seemed to be soothing himself with a bit of lyrical humming, though the tune was barely audible through the Pinto’s cracked windows. 

_“D’ya want to go to the seaside?  
_ _Not tryin’ to say that everybody wants to go….”_

Thomas dithered and fretted, and then summoned his bravest self.

Stepping up to the Pinto, he bent so that his face would be seen as he knocked on the window that framed Jimmy’s profile. The thump of his knuckles against the glass seemed to be a true shock to Jimmy, who nearly hit the roof at the unexpected interruption. Thomas almost lost his nerve when Jimmy whipped around to shoot that horrendously displeased glare straight at him, but he’d already come this far. Offering an apologetic smile, Thomas called to him: “Is there still space for me in there?”

Jimmy sucked his teeth and looked away, his arms still crossed petulantly. Thomas could only just hear his grumbled reply: “I dunno. Haven’t you got more pressin’ business elsewhere round town?”

Thomas sighed, his attention flicking momentarily back up to the bustling street above. The low sun was making his squint, the breeze tousling his neat hair as he entreated Jimmy, “Can we talk? Please?”

There was no immediate response from Jimmy, though after about thirty seconds of internal deliberation, he reached forward to unlock the door. Then he gave Pancake a little shove to the side and settled in the middle of the backseat bench, arms still crossed as he waited for Thomas to climb over the folded front seat, which he hadn’t bothered to right when had initially climbed into the vehicle on his own. Thomas fell into the spot Jimmy had just been occupying, pretending he was business as usual as he routinely reached up to shut the door behind him before getting comfortable. He leaned the bat against the side of the car and folded his hands in his lap, unsure if he should be the one to speak first. The silence just inspired more soft singing from Jimmy, who seemed determined to remain sullen. 

_“But I fell in love at the seaside.  
_ _I handled my charm with time and sleight of hand, hand…”_

Despite the sound of his voice, Thomas still felt like Jimmy was in his own, private space, like he had barely registered any kind of change since Thomas had arrived except that he had shifted his position in the car, and that Pancake was getting a little cramped.  “I’m sorry,” Thomas suddenly blurted, unable to wait another moment in such a charged atmosphere.

Jimmy sharply angled his face back at Thomas, though his expression was still creased with irritation.

“I were just scared you’d – y’know, have a problem with – um,” Thomas began vaguely as he messed about with the positioning of his hands; “That you’d not want to be me friend and that. If you knew, that is.”

Jimmy barely flinched, though he turned away to stare through the windscreen again. “Did you really think I hadn’t already figured that out? I’m not simple,” he said tightly, like the flesh around his mouth was starting to ache with the strain of his frown. “What other sort of bloke carries dog-eared issues of _Gay Times_ his case?”

Thomas was completely flustered that Jimmy had found those, though it seemed all so obvious in retrospect when he remembered that Jimmy had just as many chances to rifle through his things as Thomas had done Jimmy.

“D’ya really think I give a shit?” Jimmy suddenly said, breaking the silence with a broken sort of tone that almost sounded hurt. Thomas dared to glance over at Jimmy, who was now holding Pancake against him in that same, childish way that reminded Thomas of a boy with the world’s largest stuffed animal. Pancake had sat up on his back haunches, and was big enough that the top of his head was just short of brushing the roof.

“Then what’s this strop all about, ey?” Thomas wondered, though his tone was gentle. He was already drowning in relief that Jimmy didn’t care about the one thing he was usually slagged off for, and felt almost as if he’d crossed some new threshold in their friendship – even if Jimmy was being inexplicably mardy.

“Forget it,” Jimmy mumbled into Pancake’s fur. “Not important.”

“You’re certain?”

“I said to forget it!” Jimmy snapped, which Pancake backed up with a tough bark. “Don’t you have a date or somethin’ to be seein’ to, anyway? Why’re you stopped here, worryin’ about me?”

“Because I –!” Thomas had to slice his dulled nails into his palms to keep himself from speeding too quickly into even riskier territory. Swallowing, he tilted his head back and stared up at the underside of the Pinto’s roof as he said in a much more measured way, “Because that weren’t goin’ to amount to much – what you saw, that is. An’ I’d rather be stuck up in here with you and your big, dumb mutt than anywhere remotely near that selfish prat if I get a say in it, right?”

Thomas tried to add humor to his delivery, which perhaps wasn’t enough to charm away Jimmy’s attitude, though it did win a small flicker at the corner of the blond’s mouth. It was a funny business, considering that lingering with Philip would have at least guaranteed him a little slap and tickle, while time with Jimmy offered no such promise at all. When all was said and done, Thomas realized the solidarity of the latter was a far more satisfying lot, even if it didn’t come with the bells and whistles of romance.

“An’ you wonder why Pancake don’t like you,” Jimmy snorted, showering another bout of affection on his pet, who reciprocated with a fresh cowlick for Jimmy’s hair. “You’re always insultin’ him.”

“Oh,” Thomas smirked, relieved that they could so easily fall back into their usual ways. “And here I thought that were just jealousy.”

“Hmm,” Jimmy intoned as he loosened his embrace on Pancake and readjusted himself. Unexpectedly, he rotated his lean so that his shoulder was dug into Thomas’s, allowing Pancake more space to stretch out across the car. The Saint Bernard laid himself across the length of the bench, his head pressed into Jimmy’s stomach and his forepaws entwined with Thomas’s knotted hands. A quiet peacefulness descended upon the trio, especially as the end of another day together swathed Oxford in its blown out shadows and low embers. Jimmy closed his eyes and held Pancake, serenading his dog with the same little lullaby Thomas had caught him with before.

 _“But I fell in love on the seaside._  
_On the seaside.  
__In the seaside….”_   

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can understand if you'd rather punch me than say something nice. But don't worry; it'll get cute again soon. Promise. 
> 
> As usual, thanks for reading! Hope you're still enjoying even though this thing just got super real. Kudos to Demential for being the one person to figure it out in like... the second chapter, haha. 
> 
> The song Jimmy is blasting as he drives off is 'Go With the Flow' by Queens of the Stone age <3  
> Jimmy's song is 'Seaside; by The Kooks.


	11. i want! i want!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, how strange and difficult  
> Feigning innocence is...."

 

They ended up falling asleep like that, slanted like dominos over top of one another. Not even Pancake stirred through the night, probably because there was a comfortable breeze whistling in through the slit windows, and the day had been exhausting for all of them. They probably would have remained as such well into the late morning if the loud jangle of Jimmy’s mobile hadn’t interrupted their dreams.

The combination of the ringtone, Pancake’s barking and his shifting weight, crashed straight through Thomas’s private reveries, all of which had been centered upon the thousands of ways he could imagine making love to Jimmy in the back of the Pinto. When the disruption struck, in his head, Jimmy was splayed across the bench with his legs twisted round Thomas’s middle as Thomas tugged at Jimmy’s boxers – printed with those classy, bowtied penguins, of course – and imagining the little simpers and sighs his touch might incite within the blond. Thomas’s eyes wearily slit open, half confused by the morning dew that caked the Pinto’s windows – a sight that was disarmingly similar to the foggy glass that had encased his fantasy. He was then acutely aware of Jimmy’s body, pressed so heavily against his side that it momentarily gave the illusion of intimacy, even after reality had pressed itself into his vision.

Jimmy, however, was not so quick to shake himself awake, even with Pancake urgently pawing at him with every note the mobile sang. (It was currently beeping the tune to ‘Sally Cinnamon,’ which Thomas approved of immensely.) It was odd, Thomas noted as he joined in with Pancake’s prodding, considering that Jimmy was always the first up, ready to go jogging before the sun was even in the sky. Jimmy was slow to respond to the jostling, smacking his lips as he blearily searched his surroundings. He landed on Thomas with a crooked smile, which dimpled in one plump cheek as he wondered, “We slept in the car again?”

“Yes,” Thomas said succinctly, too distracted by Jimmy and the disarray of his mussed hair to bother searching out the mobile. That horrible sensation of falling in love with Jimmy for the millionth time had completely crowded his every sense, dying to ask if he could give him a morning kiss – wondering how Jimmy would respond if he did.

“Where’s Sybil?” Jimmy wondered, interrupting Thomas’s thoughts. His hands were already seeking out Pancake, who was growing impatient with the mobile’s ringing and the fact that it had taken Jimmy more than fifteen seconds to let him out for a morning run. But Jimmy was now taking his own moment to orient himself with the car, almost like he had to blink dreams of his own out of his eyes before he’d be fully ready for the day. “Were it just the pair of us?” Jimmy asked Thomas in an innocent manner that pinned Thomas to the seat with unabashed misery.

Pancake barked like he was aware he’d been excluded. His complaining stole Jimmy’s attention, leaving Thomas without a chance to answer. _Perhaps it’s for the better_ , Thomas thought as he watched Jimmy comb through the slovenly vehicle for his phone, which he eventually unearthed from beneath his skateboard. It had started to ring on repeat, which made the call seem urgent, though Thomas was really only vaguely interested in who was on the line. Instead, Thomas found himself trying to figure out how a mere twenty-four hours had managed to slip into days and weeks and forever.

“D’ya know what time it is?” Jimmy said into the phone once he finally managed to answer. There was a pause after which Jimmy leaned over to the nearest window to rub away the thin skin of moisture that clouded the glass, revealing a much fuller car park and a bright cerulean sky. “Okay, so it’s not that early,” Jimmy acquiesced to whoever he was speaking to; “Where are we? I –“ He cut himself off halfway through his response, and then quickly deferred to Thomas: “Where are we? It’s Sybil.”

“By the Magdalen Bridge,” Thomas replied, his easy tone smoothing over his inward conundrum about what he ought to tell Sybil if it turned out she had invented some sort of _implication_ about what he and Jimmy might have been up to alone. “Tell her we can meet her anywhere.”

“Oh!” Jimmy perked, a flicker of surprise riding his features; “ _We_ , is it? Decided to come through to London after all, is it?”

Clearing his throat, Thomas made a show of smoothing out his jumper – which he desperately wanted to change out of at the earliest possible convenience. “Well, no need to dwell on why it’s time to move onto Plan B,” he told Jimmy, deftly avoiding the need to explain the details to Jimmy. “I’d rather hang than let myself fall into that trap again.”

“It’s good to have standards,” Jimmy said, and then almost immediately flipped his attention back to Sybil with a fumble. “Yes, yes, I’m still here,” he insisted as he climbed up through the two front seats, pushed the driver’s seat back up and groping for the door handle so that Pancake could at least stretch his legs a little. “Yeah, we can grab lunch with you wherever – Thomas’ll know,” Jimmy went on, ignorant of the way Thomas was shamelessly enjoying the view of his backside as he bent forward. Jimmy then flung himself back beside Thomas, still chatting away as he started to goad Pancake over his lap and out of the car with his one free hand. It was a laborious and somewhat comedic routine, especially considering that Pancake didn’t seem particularly thrilled about leaving Jimmy on his own with Thomas. Even when the St. Bernard managed to escape the Pinto, instead of shooting off, he plunked down on his back haunches like a sentry, simply watching.

“Right, sure; love you, bye,” Jimmy said just before hanging up, and Thomas sucked in a painful wisp of air that made the bridge of his nose sting. He knew the parting had been flippant, but hearing Jimmy actually voice those words was enough to drive even a better man mad. Something about the way Thomas heard it made it seem like it was the biggest moment in the whole world.

He was only lassoed back to the present by the neck – easily called to attention by Jimmy’s smallest sighs. He could barely even help himself, only vaguely pacified by the way Jimmy spoke to him when they were alone. “She wants us to meet her at some pub called The Turf or sommat,” Jimmy informed him, rolling his back so that each of his shoulders popped. Thomas licked the back of his clenched teeth as Jimmy elongated his neck and ran his bony fingers into the little wisps of blond hair curling at the nape. “D’ya know it?” Jimmy added with the sort of drawl in his tone that befit a stretching cat.

“I do – quite a local little spot,” Thomas said, forcing his attention out the window, to where Pancake was still sitting in the space between the Pinto and the car parked beside it. His tail was sweeping away all the dust and leaves dotting the tarmac behind him, though most of the debris ended up tangled in the fluffy appendage. Thomas tried to ignore the dreadful sense that he was being scrutinized, and went on: “Sybil’s sister must be a real Oxford girl if she frequents it.”  

“Is it far?” Jimmy then asked. He had flipped onto his belly to go rummaging through all the junk in the Pinto’s boot for Pancake’s bag – and called Thomas’s attention to every little ripple and bend in Jimmy’s musculature as he moved.

“About ten minutes on foot,” Thomas said absently, still too busy admiring the view in his immediate universe.

“Oh, so plenty of time to clean up. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of smellin’ like two-day old shite, me,” Jimmy said, arse wiggling in the air as he dove further into the boot. “I need to put on something fresh before I become a toxic dumpin’ zone.”

The football Jimmy had claimed to be ferrying somewhere in the car came flying over his shoulder, rebounding into the front of the car almost absently. Thomas followed its trajectory as it rolled across the driver’s seat to plop down on the tarmac near Pancake’s feet; the dog pawed it and then laid down on top of it, clearly not interested in it as a toy. Thomas physically altered his position to shoot Pancake a cold stare, certain that the attitude was completely rooted in their strange competition over Jimmy’s attention.

“What d’ya have in mind?” Thomas wondered drolly; “Jumpin’ into the river for a bath, eh?”

It was almost funny how quickly Jimmy extricated himself from the back, one of Thomas’s busted loafers clutched in each hand as his eyes became round with wonder. “Oh my God, Thomas, _can we_?” he exclaimed with so much fervor, it was impossible for Thomas to back down.

When Thomas casually shrugged at the idea, Jimmy threw the shoes with glee – one of which bounced towards Pancake’s spot outside the car – and leapt on Thomas with a thoroughly unexpected and thrilled hug. Pancake decided that Thomas’s gnarled shoe made a far better chew toy than the football, and propped himself up in the Pinto’s open door so that he could snatch it up with slobbery jaws. Thomas, meanwhile, was too busy trying to regain lordship over his lungs with Jimmy’s arms entwined around him – which was lucky for Pancake, who had already ripped into the heel of what had once been Thomas’s right loafer.

But then Jimmy had let go of Thomas – the hug the mere work of a moment – and was already climbing up to the front to get out. Thomas could only follow as Jimmy threw the football back into the car and locked it up, leading the way from the car park to the Magdelen Bridge. Pancake and Thomas kept pace with one another as they brought up the rear, each giving the other dark glances as they walked side-by-side. Pancake chewed resiliently through the sole of Thomas’s loafer, and Thomas couldn’t help but sense a symbolic threat in the gesture.

Upon reaching the center of the iconic bridge, Jimmy ran to its stone rail and leaned over to take stock of the water. There were mossy overhangs trailing through the balustrade, calling attention to the gently ebbing river below. A pair of boat docks dominated the banksides, flanking either end of the bridge, but Jimmy didn’t seem interested in any of that. By the time Thomas and Pancake caught up to him, he had pulled off his socks and trainers, and was already in the process of clawing off his tee-shirt with the cartoon walrus.

“Jimmy, you can’t just….” Thomas trailed off as the shirt flapped off of Jimmy’s fingers and spiraled to the pavement like it was caught in a slow-spinning breeze. Jimmy’s long fingers were dancing across the sliding clasp of his belt buckle, loosening the trousers that seemed to melt down his sculpted thighs as he stepped out of them. Then he was nearly naked, climbing up onto the stone balustrade in only his boxers. (They were giraffes today.) The daylight painted long, ephemeral stripes across the muscles in his back as he crouched, highlighting his tattooed shoulder blade and the copper tone of his skin. Staring at Jimmy glowing in the sun like that, it was like he wasn’t even a human being.  

“I can’t just what?” asked Jimmy, noting the long gap of silence from Thomas as he waited, almost expectantly. Another beat sailed by – though it drew on with aching slowness for Thomas – and then Jimmy answered his own question. “Can’t do this?” he exclaimed before launching himself off the side of the bridge.

“God, watch out for the punters!” Thomas cautioned loudly as he flew to the rail and bent over to watch Jimmy’s plummet into the Cherwell. The blond had knotted himself into a large ball that exploded into the lazy river with a huge spout of water that nearly cleared the bridge.

For a terrifying moment, Thomas though Jimmy might have hurt himself, or that he’d gotten stuck beneath the punts all roped to the nearby docks, for there was no sign of the blond from beneath the rippling swell. Though he’d always been too practical to jump off this same bridge for May Morning, panic found Thomas hastily unlacing Jimmy’s red trainers, discarding articles of clothing in the same pile Jimmy had left behind as he stripped down to go in after him. Stripped down to his underwear and his silver cross, he climbed up onto the rail, just as Jimmy had done, touched himself in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and then jumped.

Bubbles surged around Thomas as he took the plunge, forcing themselves up through his nose and into his stinging eyes as he tried to catch sight of Jimmy in the submarine murkiness. The water wasn’t particularly deep, and it wasn’t long before Thomas was floating back up to the surface for air. He broke the wavelets with a loud gasp, throwing his head back with a flick of soggy, water-dotted hair. Treading water, he glanced about, at first only catching the bemused glances of the nearby boaters who had watched both of them cannonball into the river in such quick succession. Dimly, he could hear Pancake yelping frantically from the street above, but that was of lesser importance than locating Jimmy.

There was only a hasty second of warning, filled with the echo of Jimmy’s laughter beneath one of the bridge’s stone arches, before Thomas was suddenly ambushed by the blond from behind. Flying at him with wings of translucent water, Jimmy came launching at him like a typhoon, his arms poised to catch Thomas in a hug that nearly dragged the pair of them back under. “Gotcha!” Jimmy blurbled, his face half submerged as he hung off Thomas’s broad shoulders, weighing off him backwards, like an anchor.

“I certainly hope you’re satisfied,” Thomas said flatly, though he had to admit the cool water was refreshing. Still, it was hard to steady himself when he could feel Jimmy’s slick flesh against his, the touch of which ran dangerous currents through him. It put him at a disadvantage when Jimmy tried to dunk him again, and even more so when Thomas tried to retaliate.

Out of courtesy for a punt just pushing off from the nearby dock, Jimmy released Thomas and floated off with an amateurish backstroke. “At least a bit cleaner,” he said as he waved at giggling girls that populated the passing boat. He lowered his hand, messing with something below the surface that Thomas couldn’t allow himself to think about; “Shoulda just done it starkers,” he smirked at his reflection in the water, and Thomas couldn’t help but pretend that the comment was aimed at him.

“I’d’ve loved to see you try and make it back to the car like that if you had,” Thomas said in a half-serious tone that might have been read as sarcastic. It seemed like Jimmy Kent didn’t even need forty-eight hours to turn the whole of Oxford inside-out.

“Well, same to you, Barrow! S’not like I got sommat to hide, ey?” Jimmy huffed, though he still wore the same cheeky expression as before – which only got Thomas even more twisted. Jimmy drifted on his back towards the bridge, his arms spread out as he grinned up at the puffy clouds overhead, while Thomas surreptitiously eyed the cut of Jimmy’s abdomen as it crested the water, his toned pectorals and pert nipples, which were rosy red and hard.

Thomas said nothing, and instead swam after Jimmy, unsure he could perpetuate this charade much longer. Their goal of rinsing off the grime of the last few days had been met, leaving Thomas with a litany of pitfalls that might arise if he and Jimmy were left alone like this much longer. Jimmy may have earned a clear understanding of Thomas’s taste in men, but that was still quite different than Jimmy realizing that Thomas’s proclivity involved him in a very specific way.

Much to the pleasure of some of the female punters on the dock, Jimmy gracefully pulled himself out of the water and shook off like Pancake might have done. Thomas tried to be a bit more discreet as he followed suit, more concerned with the shock of cold air that hit his skin when he climbed up than any sort of peacocking. He could feel the eyes glued to his soaked boxer briefs as he hurried after Jimmy, who proudly strode up towards the bridge without a care for the way the dripping giraffes he wore clung to his every curve.

Pancake was right where they’d left him, neurotically guarding their abandoned clothes, while also causing quite a fuss over the way Jimmy had so haphazardly made his exit with anxious pacing. His attitude towards Thomas was mixed as the two men retrieved their things, lodged somewhere between his usual resentment and an odd sort of acceptance that Thomas had been so quick to respond to Jimmy’s wild leap into the river. Thomas supposed that in Pancake’s eyes, the playful dip had seemed far more harrowing than it actually was. _Well, it’s a beginning_ , he decided, as the trio headed back for the Pinto to unpack a clean wardrobe, all the while doing their best to ignore the cat calls and tooting car horns that serenaded the walk. Though it still didn’t change the fact that Pancake had completely destroyed Thomas’s one loafer beyond recognition – almost like a warning.

“We should see if there’s someone in town who’ll patch up that ruddy leak in the petrol tank,” Jimmy said conversationally as they approached the Pinto, ignoring the continued stares they were getting as they crossed the car park.

Thomas, meanwhile, felt like he might as well have been waiting bare-assed for Jimmy to unlock the boot with the level of exposure he currently felt, and absently grunted a word of agreement at the idea. It wasn’t that he was particularly body shy – but being close to Jimmy in such a state made him so, and he couldn’t help the discomfort that Philip was lurking around every corner, ready to demolish everything Thomas had been working so carefully to balance. Pancake’s secret war with Thomas – which Jimmy still seemed mostly oblivious to – wasn’t much more help: Thomas still got the crazy impression the dog was actively trying to keep Thomas as far from Jimmy as possible. It made Thomas want to simultaneously pursue more fervently and wring his hands in despair all at once.

So lost in his musing was Thomas that he was almost surprised when Jimmy pushed his case in his direction. Thomas took the travelling valise absently, holding it awkwardly over his thighs as he waited for Jimmy to fish his duffel out. Carelessly flinging his dirty clothes onto the pile of stuff accumulating inside the boot, Jimmy sat down just inside the open hatchback with his legs dangling over the tail bumper as he arbitrarily chose a new shirt and dry underwear. All too quickly, Thomas realized Jimmy was going to strip right there; he held his breath and tried to cram his attention into the overhanging branches of a nearby tree. A wolf whistle wafted over from somewhere close; Pancake barked a fierce reply, running this way and that like he meant to show off his fighting prowess. 

“You can use the back seat,” Jimmy interrupted. Barely in time for Thomas to react, the jangle and flash of metal caught his eye as Jimmy threw his keyring at him. It landed by one of Thomas’s bare toes, which were browned with pavement dirt from their stroll back to the car. Thomas dropped his attention to the ground, still adamant that Jimmy have a privacy that the blond didn’t seem to need. He took his time stooping to pick the keys up, half aware of the way Jimmy had lifted his legs to shuck off his giraffe boxers in favor of the fresh octopus-and-bubbles pair he’d just retrieved. 

Just as soon as Thomas had figured out to juggle his case, the red trainers and his old clothes in an arrangement that allowed him a free hand, Pancake inserted himself between Thomas’s grasping fingers and the keyring. Thomas slowly lifted his gaze up as Pancake ran the keys back to Jimmy, who had halted in buttoning up the collarless, blue shirt he’d just shrugged on in order to shove Pancake back in Thomas’s direction. There was a childhood-like playfulness to the image that held Thomas captivated in a stillness only he knew, even as their glances met by chance. Something unwound itself within Thomas as he realized that in that moment, what he was seeing in Jimmy was a part of himself he thought had fallen away long ago.

“Sorry,” said Jimmy with a sheepish grin as he wrested the keys back from Pancake. He gave his pet a stern cuff of admonishment on the nose, and then threw them at Thomas once more.

Thomas snatched them off the tarmac and practically sprinted to open the driver’s door. He threw it wide and threw everything he was carrying into the back, hastily climbing in afterwards and wilting into the bench as though he’d just run a whole marathon instead of just a few paces. The Pinto creaked on its suspension as Jimmy wriggled around in the boot, no doubt placating Pancake as he finished dressing. Thomas popped his case open and tried hard not to dwell on it too much. It was very hard.

After executing the fastest underwear swap in history, Thomas hastened to get himself into another pair of trousers – which ended up being the same ones he’d been wearing the first day he’d met Jimmy. They were unpressed and rumpled, and notably unlike Thomas’s typical smartness, but he was in too much of a rush to be concerned about it. He was almost ashamed in himself that time was making him more selfish in his desires, and was certain he was growing more obvious about it with each passing second. It was like constantly running in circles, yet never quite getting off the blocks.

He was still digging through his case for a fresh shirt when the Pinto gave a particularly notable lurch. Daring a brief glance over his bare shoulder, Thomas found Pancake had climbed up into the boot with Jimmy, and they were playing roughly amid all the luggage and junk piled there. Almost as if he had a sense about it, Jimmy popped up at Thomas’s side, leaning over the backseat on folded arms. “Give us the phone,” Jimmy demanded with a toss of his chin, indicating the mobile he had carelessly dropped after his earlier conversation with Sybil.

He was so inconsequential about the request, it was a quick needle to Thomas’s inflated hope that perhaps Jimmy had been just as curious to look in on him. Still, as Thomas bent over his knees to pick the device up, he couldn’t quite shake the sensation that Jimmy’s eyes were sliding down the length of his back. He lingered in his execution of the task, bravely challenging Jimmy to do exactly that – even if he’d later end up paying for it from Oxford to London.

Straightening, Thomas handed Jimmy his mobile, turning in time to catch Jimmy fluffing his fringe with the help of the rearview mirror. He was still raking his fingers through damp curls as he took the phone from Thomas, one-handedly unlocking it to fiddle with the camera function. Thomas watched him from the corner of his eyes under the continued pretense of a hunt for the best shirt in his valise.

Just when Thomas thought Jimmy was about to click off a series of self-involved portraits of himself with Pancake, he was surprised by the rapidity with which Jimmy flung an arm around Thomas’s neck and dragged him close. Thomas’s wet hair stuck to Jimmy’s cheek as Jimmy aimed the lens back at them, catching a swathe of Thomas’s pale chest, the poise of Jimmy’s bowed lips around a flash of tooth as he tapped the shutter. Thomas’s stubble-peppered cheek against Jimmy’s baby-soft skin emphasized the difference in their ages, overwhelming Thomas with how terrible it was that he was still hanging on – or worse still, how little it mattered to him.

“With _feelin_ ’, big boy,” Jimmy said, positioning the mobile for another shot. Another smirk and a wink, the sun caught in the silver cross lying upon Thomas’s flushed skin: Jimmy captured the enamored flicker in Thomas’s eyes, oblivious to what it meant. _Ktcchk, ktcchk_ : he snapped two more.

“That’s the way,” Jimmy approved as he released Thomas to fiddle with the picture in Instagram, though he remained draped over the backseat like his presence shouldn’t have any bearing on Thomas’s ability to clothe himself. He clearly had no idea how wound up his phraseology had made Thomas, who was inwardly trembling over being given the same nickname as Pancake. Jaggedly, Thomas snatched up a V-neck jumper and robotically yanked it over his head like he meant to suffocate beneath the knit fabric forever.

By the time Thomas had pulled his head through the jumper, he was relieved that the atmosphere in the Pinto had regained its usual facilities – its vaguely canine odor and the stickiness that came with the sun trapped beneath the windscreen in the airless vehicle. Jimmy had already discovered the location of a reputable mechanic with the help of his mobile, and was halfway through explaining to Thomas how it wouldn’t be such a big deal to dawdle in Oxford long enough to get the Pinto more road-worthy.

“We’ll meet Sybil, eat, an’ then have a grand old time while we wait on the car,” Jimmy decided as he crawled out of the boot, slamming the hatchback closed with enough gusto to make the Pinto bounce. A full circulation of breath came and left Thomas before the car settled and he felt ready to face another harrowing day in his life with Jimmy Kent.

Jimmy rustled his skateboard out from beneath the passenger seat, while Thomas climbed out of the Pinto on the other side. Despite being the leader of their excursion to meet Sybil, Thomas walked behind Pancake, and in even step with the blond, which at least made it easier to steal crooked glances at him. Jimmy’s enchantment with Oxford kept his chin angled upwards at the spindled towers and gabled roofs, but Thomas’s attention was far more earthbound, caught on the black Vans Jimmy had put back on his feet, cuffed with tall, white socks that enunciated the shape of his calves with stripes that ran round the top. His slate shorts were frayed at the knee, and the sporty, mint bomber jacket he wore with his blue shirt left Thomas tongue-tied and knotted in his own skin as both garments flapped around his bare torso in the breeze.

It didn’t take long for Jimmy to hop on his board the moment they got back up to the street, and Thomas could only jog after him to the beat of his own, foolish heart. Jimmy weaved easily in and out of traffic, avoiding other pedestrians and obstacles with ease. Sometimes, Thomas got the wild idea that Jimmy was trying to _show off_ for him, but then he would quickly remember the same little teases he’d thrown at the girl punters on the Cherwell: clearly, the sort of attention Jimmy was after was any he could manage to beg, borrow or steal from anyone who happened across his way. He executed a neat heelflip at the end of the street, catching the board on his way down and announcing his presence with the clatter of wheels against the pavement. Thomas caught up trying his best not to appear that entranced by Jimmy’s athleticism.

“You’re goin’ to get yourself killed,” Thomas admonished as Jimmy picked up the skateboard and followed the dark-haired cricketer over the crosswalk at the corner.

Jimmy immediately laid the board down again and got right back to cruising, this time with Pancake galloping at his side. Thomas had to settle for calling out directions to the speeding skater as they flashed through town, all the while keeping an eye out for the arbitrary copper: he knew Oxford well enough to know there was no tolerance for skating on the pavement there. Still, there was no stopping the blond, so Thomas just lit a cigarette and trailed along with halfhearted directions instead.

They were nearly to the tavern Sybil had indicated when Jimmy took a sharp turn around a traffic post and nearly spilled face-first down the steps leading into a nearby side street. Thomas was at his side fast than even Pancake, despite the fact that Jimmy was already getting back up at the foot of the stairs, dusting his bleeding knees like a few swipes of his palm would fix the injury.

What Jimmy didn’t expect, however, was to be wound into an unexpected hug that pressed his lax body tightly flush against Thomas’s. “Be _careful_ ,” Thomas mumbled into the crook of Jimmy’s long neck, almost like he was admonishing a child. “Who’s goin’ to take me to London, ey? If you smash your face in?” he intoned breathily, heedless of the light bruise that was rising beneath the nose of Jimmy’s skateboard as it swung into his leg.

Anything Jimmy might have said was muffled in the knit gray of Thomas’s jumper, which was just thin enough to absorb a small dotting of drool from the pucker of Jimmy’s lips. Pancake, who was more than a little displeased to watch, complained loudly, and made every effort to insert his snout between Thomas and Jimmy’s entwined thighs.

When that failed, the dog settled for a mouthful of Jimmy’s long shorts, tugging at them with enough force to nearly rip a chunk out of the thick cotton – or at least enough to try and drag Jimmy out of Thomas’s embrace. Pancake was only remotely satisfied when Thomas pushed Jimmy back, holding him steadily beneath a pair of curved palms as he bore a sincere look through the blond.

“Skate or die, Thomas,” Jimmy eventually intoned, though the radicalness of his comment was chewed up by a passing bus, the motor of which echoed down through the little side street they’d turned upon. “It’s how you make sure you’re leadin’ a bold life.”

More traffic chugged down the busy street they’d just abandoned. It left them encapsulated in an odd bubble of calm, separate from the rest – enchanting, almost. “D’ya think I ought to be more bold, then?” he asked softly, as if even though yelp of Pancake’s barking couldn’t disrupt the moment. “Is that the problem? I ain’t _bold_ enough for you?”

He dared to ask that last question on a tightened breath that was suffocated with a bullet lodged deep in his throat, gunpowder caking the roof of his mouth, his tongue.  

“Oh, I think you’ve got plenty of _that_ ,” Jimmy intoned quietly, even as he stumbled backwards at Pancake’s behest. He turned a frown and knotted eyebrows down at Pancake, irritated to find a few noticeable tooth-shaped punctures lining the hem of his shorts, while Thomas lamented over what the handsome, blond devil might have been trying to suggest with such a comment. He didn’t dare pursue the topic, certain his next question would be centered on what sort of boldness Jimmy preferred in the conjugal bed. He tore into his bottom lip with sharp teeth to keep himself from fantasizing about who would swallow whom – about how he’d get a mouthful of Jimmy’s _boldness_ if it killed him. In a lifetime of rolling through the sheets with men of all sorts, Thomas couldn’t believe how desperately Jimmy made him perspire – an illness that had sickened his very existence.

Instead, Thomas just started walking down the little side street, loudly informing Jimmy that they were nearly at their destination in hopes that such an uninteresting announcement would soothe his own wicked thoughts. It was an unfortunately caveat that it did not. If anything, the affliction was getting worse with every step Thomas took.

The presently arrived at The Turf Tavern, where they found Sybil waiting for them at a picnic table in the establishment’s back garden. Dressed in a flowing, aquamarine sundress, she didn’t seem particularly annoyed that they had taken their sweet time in joining her, as she had a half-eaten cheese plate in front of her, her mobile in one hand and a glass of chardonnay in the other. As Thomas and Jimmy swung their legs over the bench opposite hers, she took a long sip of wine and giggled at them: “Am I allowed to ask? Or was even your morning sacrosanct?” She glanced back down at her phone, the display of which seemed to hold untold hilarity for her.

“We went for a swim, if you must know,” Jimmy sniffed haughtily, his outward hand automatically seeking out Pancake for a series of rubs and pets. Thomas was starting to notice that Jimmy’s affinity for raking his nails through Pancake’s fur seemed to be just as therapeutic for the man as it was his beast.

“I can tell,” Sybil smirked, finally turning her mobile’s screen to face them. It was Jimmy’s Instagram, opened up to display the picture that had been taken in the Pinto while he and Thomas had been changing. The clot in Thomas’s throat threatened to explode when he saw the photograph, realizing that its framing made it almost look as though he’d been sitting with Jimmy _naked_. The lovestruck look on his face, immortalized for the entire Internet to see, were as unhelpful as the small collection of comments that had already found their way to the image in the time it had taken them to walk over.

“Well, that’s what you get for runnin’ off to be with family or whatever,” Jimmy shrugged, though he didn’t sound particularly offended by the fact that Sybil had her own plans.

At this, Sybil groaned, taking another long gulp of wine, which she punctuated with a thick slice of raclette and two grapes. “Trust me, you two had all the fun. Mary is just as snooty as ever, and dear Mathew wasn’t even in town,” she lamented, though she was quick to throw in a bit of her usual candor: “Not that it likely would have been quite the same with little old me tagging along, I should think!” It was hard to tell if she meant to tease Thomas and Jimmy, or if she was merely trying to cheer herself up: either way, Thomas went red from ear to ear.

“Might’ve helped to have a little more sense about us,” Thomas said rather insipidly to Jimmy, who was helping himself to Sybil’s cheese tray. “Might’ve at least kept us a bit drier.”

“I have a very particular feeling,” Sybil retorted around the last swallow of wine in her glass, “that _dry_ was not a goal for either of you last night.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jimmy smirked before Thomas had a chance to derail the conversation. A desperate part of him wanted to know the answer, but the sensible part liked hanging by a noose of uncertainty: it kept what little hope he had still barely breathing. But Jimmy was already snatching for Sybil’s mobile, while Sybil flagged down a nearby waiter for another round of wine that included the lot of them. With their laughter dancing around him, Thomas felt like he was trapped in a swirling champagne bubble that was about to burst.   

“Ha, look,” Jimmy sniggered as he leaned across the table to show Sybil something; “We’ve not even made it to London and Ivy’s already jealous again.”

“Oooh, is that what all this was about?” Sybil teased, though she was looking at Thomas, not Jimmy, as she spoke. Failing to catch the dark-haired man’s attention, she scrunched her mouth to one side and glanced back down at her phone, where Jimmy’s was pointing out a comment. She read it aloud, redirecting a rapidly developing smirk back towards Thomas: “’ _Glad your wee trip’s been beneficial,’_ ” she said in a voice that made the genial comment sound salacious. “ _’Naughty, naughty, JJ.’_ ”

It was that infernal nickname again, which Thomas found himself suddenly quite irritated by. His nails were dug into the table as he subtly nibbled the inside of his lip behind pursed lips, hoping he didn’t look as distressed as he felt as Jimmy finally explained to Sibyl, “Ivy’s brother, that. It makes Ivy crazy that we’re mates.”

“Mates with nicknames?” Thomas finally sought out the nerve to say, though his knuckles were still blanched from his grip on the table edge. Trying to unravel the meaning in any of it seemed as turned around as trying to backtrack out of a labyrinth with just only a tangled clump of yarn to help.   

“Do you want me to come up with a nickname for _you_ , big boy?” Jimmy asked with a rather smug turn to his lip, an eyebrow arched like he was trying to incite a dare. Pancake put a stop to it with a bark, annoyed at the disruption in his petting – or perhaps that one of his own pseudonyms was in danger of being reassigned to his competition.

Thomas had the wherewithal to help himself to the knife lying on Sybil’s cheese tray, forcing the tightening in his chest into the hunk of manchego as he sawed into it.  

“Anyway,” Jimmy went on, turning his attention back to Sybil, “we got close between all the starts and stops me an’ Ivy had.” He summed it up with a shrug just as the waiter was returning with their wine. He was quick to pluck up his glass for a hearty swallow, which sunk down his throat as he said, “Kind of hard to miss a circus when it’s constantly pitchin’ tent under your roof, ey?” He threw back another rather ample gulp, which Thomas noted to be a bit overly-indulgent.

“I take it he finds your Ivy just as ridiculous as you do,” Sybil commented as she drew her phone back to her side of the table, turning to her own glass with a bit more reservation. She daintily held it by the stem and sipped at the beverage between more samples of cheese and fruit.

“He used to think it were funny when we’d fight,” Jimmy told her, arms folded. “But then when Alfred started getting’ dragged into it, and he could see the whole thing for what it were on the outside, he started takin’ me aside. Got chummy real quick tryin’ to make sense of it all.”

“And I suppose that wasn’t received well,” Sybil surmised, her eyes flicking down to the rather violent method with which Thomas was still trying to hack off a piece of cheese for himself.

“It certainly was not,” Jimmy agreed with a rather solemn nod. He reached forward to assist Thomas with the cheese, flattening his palm against Thomas’s downwardly angled thumb to push the knife through the manchego more smoothly. “At least for Ivy. Alfred knew and didn’t care – mates are mates – but to Ivy, it were a whole new thing to be mardy about. One last blowout, and me an’ Pancake were outta there. I couldn’t even think straight for a week, I was so fuckin’ pissed off about it.”

At this, Sybil leaned over to simper at Pancake, her lips puckered in air kisses as she cooed, “Oh, no wonder our big, handsome man gets so grumpy about people getting too near his daddy. Isn’t that right?”

Pancake yipped and wagged his tail enthusiastically at such a compliment, like he was pleased that at least _someone_ understood his plight. Jimmy was outwardly charmed by the interaction, but Thomas wasn’t so distracted that he missed the rather droll look Sybil was shooting at him from across the table.

After eating, the group returned to the Pinto, which Jimmy then drove to the garage he’d located earlier. He was fortunate that the damage was minimal, and wouldn’t require a whole new piece – just a bit of heavy-duty epoxy. The mechanic told them to take a stroll and return in a few hours, which wasn’t exactly a painful sentence. Jimmy told the mechanic to take good care of his baby.

Then, as they walked away, Jimmy clapped his hands and rubbed them together with eagerness. “Now,” he said to Thomas with a cheeky grin, “I want to see the _best_ church in Oxford.”

Floundering slightly, Thomas gaped, “Well, that opinion differs greatly.”

“Then show me _all_ of ‘em,” Jimmy demanded. Just as Thomas was about to protest that doing such a thing in such a short amount of time was literally impossible, Jimmy amended his command: “Or show me _your_ favorite.”

Instinctually, Thomas wanted to take Jimmy back to Christ’s Church, the college to which he once owed allegiance – and had one of the most beautiful campuses in town. He could show Jimmy all the little bits no one would ever discover on a guided tour – the secrets only students knew. He gave momentary pause, however, deterred by the idea of going right back where he’d started – and ended so disastrously. Smacking his lips, he could still taste the sour residue of Philip’s mouth on his, a thin sweat of nervousness upon his brow as the risk of running into his old lover reintroduced itself – this time with very different connotations. It was bad enough that Philip still thought it alright to tinker with his emotions like they could be bought and sold, but the idea of thrusting Jimmy into such crossfire struck Thomas as knowingly cruel – especially after all the drama the blond had just confessed to at the tavern.

“Thomas?” Dimly, the crunch of fingers around his sleeve dug into his bicep, an axis from which he was gently shaken back to attention.

Thomas stirred, though he was made groggy by the lilt of Jimmy’s voice in his ear. It was so wicked how foolishly Thomas behaved at even the simplest of requests from Jimmy, which was exactly how he found himself taking them back to Christ’s Church anyway – risks and Philip be damned. He wanted Jimmy to love Oxford the way he did, like teaching him about it would bring them that much closer.

So, marching bravely forward, Thomas returned them to the place he used to fear more than any other in England. Every step through the college’s ornate halls, its halls, naves and priories, was something of a victory for Thomas, though neither Jimmy nor Sybil ever realized it. By the time the spires and towers of the college had become black against an orange sky, the trio was sprawled across the quad while Pancake galloped after every butterfly that drifted by. Thomas admired the elegant clocktower that was just chiming the first evening hour, accomplished in his tour through his old stomping grounds like he’d just emerged from a victorious battle. He almost dared God to send Philip his way, filled with the bravado to tear Philp down from his lofty peg.

“That were very nearly perfect,” Jimmy assessed at day’s end. He laid flat on his back, his legs and arms spread like an angel speared into the dirt as he stared up at the thin moonbeams that cloaked Oxford’s mysterious skyline above.

Thomas, who was also lying on his back, though his pose was much more inwardly drawn with crossed ankles and hands folded on his chest, glanced over at Jimmy. “Was that what you wanted to see?” he asked, momentarily fearful he’d been too caught up in his own situation to notice whether or not his companions were enjoying themselves.

“Almost,” Jimmy told the sky breathlessly. His bright blue eyes darted over towards Thomas, like there was something extra he was trying to find in his face; “Very nearly.”

“There’s time yet,” Thomas said, catching Jimmy’s glance – though the blond was quick to send his attention elsewhere when he realized he’d been noticed.

“We ought to go see about the car if we don’t want to get stuck here another night,” Jimmy suddenly announced in a rare bout of sensibility. It was the first time he had expressed any urge to get somewhere quickly, and Thomas vaguely wondered where the urgency stemmed from. Thomas deigned not to comment about it, and instead followed after Jimmy as he cruised ahead on his skateboard, jacket flapping in the breeze.

“He’s glad you’re coming with us, I think,” Sybil murmured to Thomas as they brought up the rear. She laughed privately to herself, adding an answer to the question Thomas didn’t even need to ask: “Of course he is.”

“I never said as much,” Thomas said, eyeing her carefully as they walked. Something about her tone was mischievous, and he wasn’t sure if it ought to make him nervous or not.

“You didn’t need to,” was Sybil’s simple, yet candid reply.

A curious part of Thomas wanted to know where the funds Jimmy used to settle his accounts with the mechanic came from, but deigned it an unworthy question as they all piled back into the Pinto. The car zipped out of Oxford with a little extra pep that Thomas perhaps imagined, but reveled in all the same. He didn’t even bother to bid the city and its gorgeous spires a word of adieu: he’d made his goodbyes long ago. Instead, he had the road before him, spitting up iridescent lines and globules of dim highway light as the Pinto forged ahead. The radio was soft, but Jimmy kept a heavy foot on the accelerator like he was trying to launch the Pinto through the twilit clouds – through the bright and hollow skies, the city’s ripped backsides, the stars made for –

_Singin’ la la lalalala…._

Golden hues gave way to indigo gloaming, which then fell to bluest night. The street glimmered with a glassy film of drizzle that spritzed through the Pinto’s open windows, alleviating the balmy atmosphere that floated about them. None of them seemed particularly bothered by the onset of evening, each passenger watching the scrolling landscape whiz by without a care for where their bones might rest, while Jimmy followed the beckoning moonshine over roads that seemed more out of a dreamscape than British countryside. Even with cars silently passing them by, it was like no one else was around – like they were on a ride to nowhere.

Before long, Pancake started a ruckus, demanding to be let out for a break with enough squirming to shove Sybil uncomfortably into the corner of Thomas’s case, which was propped up beneath one of the tiny back windows. She didn’t verbally complain, but Jimmy noticed the whole thing in the rearview mirror, his sandy eyebrows leaping in concern over widened eyes. Without even bothering to check, he veered towards the side of the motorway, which was a long stretch of road devoid of anything but tall grass and the intermittent electric pole. The field that extended out from beneath the Pinto’s inside wheels seemed to spread out into the depths of Elysium.

Jimmy left the Pinto’s radio on, just as he had when they’d played cricket the other day, though music somehow carried a more mystical, haunting quality than it had in the early morning. He also brought his football out of the car with them, sending it flying into planetary orbit with a clean punt. Pancake joyfully dashed after the ball, leaving Thomas, Jimmy and Sybil to climb through the rushes after him. Thomas stepped over the uneven ground as he lit a cigarette, and then calmly offered the packet to Jimmy, who indulged him. The twin plumes of smoke snaked around their faces and then evaporated into the cloud-smudged starlight.

“I can’t say I mind a little stretch myself,” Sybil told her two companions as she flipped about, tottering backwards through the long grass that danced merrily around her whirling, blue dress as she walked. Then, with a giggle, she slapped her knees and flounced around, taking off after Pancake with laughter as she stumbled through the grass. “Last one there buys our first round in London!” came her voice in a musical dare.

It was obvious the taunt was enough to put a spring into Jimmy’s step. He bounced a little, excited by any inkling of challenge. He glanced at Thomas hopefully, but the dark-haired cricketer wasn’t so enthused. “In case you haven’t noticed,” Thomas told him, “I’m havin’ a smoke break, me.”

“Oh, right,” Jimmy hummed, almost as if he’d just been reminded of the cigarette hanging between his lips. He plucked it between two fingers, contemplating it with a crinkled brow: “Me too.” He pulled at it halfheartedly, and ended up pitching it before he had even finished it.

They continued on in silence, though they were pushing through the sifting grass with no particular aim. Across the field, Pancake’s far-off barking was augmented by Sybil’s playful laughter, drifting through the warm breeze like an echo from some distant world. The silhouette of Thomas’s form was illuminated only by the speck of neon firelight that tipped his cigarette, its wan and flare leading Jimmy further into the endless field. The Pinto’s radio was barely audible as they distanced themselves from the motorway, but Thomas forged ahead, somehow invigorated by the notion of crossing the meadow with Jimmy and then finding their way back in the dark together. He wanted Jimmy to take a chance on him – to rely on him with hardly a word spoken between them.

_“I walk through the fog, kiss her through the fence….”_

As Thomas snuffed out his cigarette, he could hear Jimmy singing with the radio from behind, amplifying the sound with a strange sort of etherealness. He glanced backwards as he littered the grass with the dead fag end, blinded by the unyieldingly bright blue that danced beneath Jimmy’s eyelids as he glided through the grass with palms that skimmed the tall tips of each blade. It was a color that couldn’t be found in any of God’s other creatures, and it mesmerized Thomas to a point where it was all he could do to stand there and wish he could swim up through such a clear hue.

Jimmy drew closer, still singing along with music Thomas could no longer hear. With piddling steps, Thomas started to cut through the grass again, guided forward by Jimmy’s deep voice at his back. The rise and fall of his pitch, the rhythm of his words, all swirled around Thomas like a magic spell. 

_“Oh, how strange and difficult  
_ _Feigning innocence is.”_

Enchanted, Thomas looked back again, certain he was being dragged down into some sort of mystical hell every time he laid eyes upon Jimmy. It was only a brief instant that their eyes locked before a cunning expression overtook the blond devil, his lips still sliding against one another with his melodic chanting as he suddenly broke into a run. Thomas barely had time to recognize what was happening before he was assaulted with gangling arms and legs, all of which flung themselves around neck and waist and sent Thomas stumbling dizzily through the grass. Jimmy’s breath was hot on his ear, enunciated by gleeful lyricalness. 

_“They tuck me in, their bedtime stories  
_ _Just before we – oh, oh, ohhh!”_

Thomas grabbed Jimmy by the forearms, whirling around in an effort to swing the laughing blond off. The bemusement must have been contagious, though, for the longer Thomas tried to unseat Jimmy, the more fixed the smile on his own face became. Jimmy clamped his thighs tightly around Thomas’s waist and wrapped one arm more surely around Thomas’s shoulders so that he might use his freed hand to mask Thomas’s eyes. “ _Ohh, oh, oh!_ ” Jimmy murmured into Thomas’s ear with the vagueness of a tune, sending Thomas in sloppy circles until he was too dizzy to stand.

Crushed beneath all that Jimmy was, Thomas’s knees eventually gave out, and the pair went toppling into the depths of the undulating reeds. The crushed a little nest in the grass when they hit the ground, carving it into a more suitable shape as Thomas tried to roll himself free of Jimmy’s grip. The game had been fun while it had lasted, but now they were bordering dangerous territory. As it was, Thomas could already feel a pump of excitement radiating from chest to thigh.  

“I’m not Pancake,” Thomas breathlessly reminded Jimmy as he stared up at the moon. There was hardly an inch of bent grass between them, but Thomas respected the line with palms that were planted firmly against the dirt.

“No, you’re not,” Jimmy retorted, almost instantly popping up on his side, head propped upon a crooked elbow. He roughly poked Thomas, wondering, “Why’d you ever think you were?”

Thomas pursed his lips with a heavy sigh as he rolled his eyes in Jimmy’s direction. “’Cause you rough me around the same way.”

“Nah, that’s different. Trust,” Jimmy said with an indifferent shrug, though he remained rolled over on his side. “I mean, I can if you like,” he said, giving Thomas a more prominent shove; “But I might knock you out.”

At this suggestion, Thomas snorted, unable to keep himself from mirroring Jimmy’s pose as he countered rather defiantly, “Absolutely not.”

To which Jimmy only roiled with dark amusement, which he suddenly launched at Thomas with a pair of hands that grabbed Thomas by the wrists and latched them against the ground. The swell that Thomas had been trying to fight before had returned in full force, slamming him from heart to groin with even more urgency than before – especially as Jimmy loomed over him with a grin that glinted salaciously in the moonlight. He was humming again, leaning in enough that the words fell like a heavy rain over Thomas’s cheeks. 

_“I’ll come to her house – she’ll lay me down.  
_ _Oh how strange and beautiful….”_

Jimmy silenced himself by inclining his lips against Thomas’s, which fell open in shock. Then the world and all its stars faded out as the warmth of Jimmy’s mouth imprinted itself upon Thomas’s with more fervor. Thomas arched up from the earth, lost somewhere between trying to resist and the desire to swallow Jimmy all at once. He pushed forward, finding Jimmy pliable as he turned the blond over on his back. He removed his trembling lips carefully, almost afraid to open his eyes again – terrified he’d find Jimmy in the throes of the best joke he’d ever played. Instead, he found only tangled gold hair and a heavy-lidded gaze, bruised, gasping lips that whispered:

_“How strange and beautiful, my love, it sounds.”_

With a cindered heart and a knotted belly, Thomas stared down at Jimmy, unsure what to even say. He pushed Jimmy’s unkempt fringe off his brow, smoothing it back over his skull as he tried to understand the blue in Jimmy’s gaze. Instead, all he could do was continually stroke Jimmy’s hair and confess, “You know I’ve wanted to do that since I first got into your car.”

Jimmy snorted, wriggling a little beneath Thomas’s grip, though not with much protest. “Why’d you think I let you get in?” he retorted cheekily.

“But Ivy….” Thomas tried to understand.

His curiosity was tossed aside as Jimmy leaned up to kiss him again, this time with a bit more ardor than before. He managed to rip a hand free of Thomas’s hold so that he could rake his fingers through the midnight black hair slicked over Thomas’s right ear. Then, with a powerful shift of his hips, he reversed their positions again. This time, however, he was much more forward when he climbed over Thomas, straddling him as he bent forward to impart his secret passions.

When he pulled back, he left barely an inch between them as he murmured, “What about her?”

“She’s your – your _girlfriend_ ,” Thomas stuttered, even as Jimmy peppered his face with tiny kisses. “Or she was, anyway.”

“Yeah, and what d’ya think we fought about?” Jimmy asked without missing a beat. A kiss fell between each word almost like clockwork. “It weren’t about the tea or sommat.”

It was then that Thomas suddenly realized that despite all the reference Jimmy had made to his fall out with Ivy, he had never once mentioned what they had _actually_ rowed about. There were little pieces and clues here and there, but they had been fanned in Thomas’s hand like a deck of cards he didn’t know how to play with. It was hard to think properly through it all with Jimmy’s lips dancing across his face, but he somehow managed to at least prompt an explanation, even with all the shivers dropping through his spine in the warm night air.

“I told you at lunch,” Jimmy said as his kisses evolved to more languid ones. Thomas swore he felt a dart of tongue run down the length of his neck as Jimmy elaborated. “It were her brother who came through every time she dumped me for Alfred – that we got real chummy. _Very_ chummy,” he said against the collar of Thomas’s jumper. “Alfred knew about it – he didn’t care ‘cause it worked in his favor. And he’s me best mate, like I said. Though Pancake weren’t so understandin’. He don’t like confrontation and that.”

“Wait, wait,” Thomas interrupted. He had to struggle up onto his elbows, loath to lose the contour of Jimmy’s gorgeous lips against his skin, but he couldn’t let himself be ripped to tatters because he knowingly let himself do something stupid. “You’re sayin’ that you an’ Ivy had your last fight ‘cause she caught you with her _brother_?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah. Was that confusing?” Jimmy blinked at him, cocking his head slightly. “She were with Alfred at the time. What business is it of hers?”

A dark smirk overtook Thomas as a complete reevaluation of the situation took place. “Absolutely none,” he whispered darkly as he reached for Jimmy and pushed him back onto the ground to kiss him some more. This is time, there was no need to be coy about the gesture, and he met Jimmy with equal ardor now that there was no more mystery about what any of Jimmy’s little quirks and scintillations meant.

They kissed so long, the moon might as well have unscrewed itself from the sky and made way for a fresh dawn. Some of their touching was explorative and exciting, though there was a certain care for boundaries as they let their fingertips roam over one another. Eventually, when they were so dizzy with exhilaration, anything further would have meant ripped seams, lost socks and love bites. Thomas still carried Jimmy back towards the Pinto when they decided to return, and Jimmy kissed him the entire way, his arms and legs wrapped around Thomas like there was nothing else in the universe to hold.

Thomas was only vaguely aware of the fact that the Pinto’s radio was still on as he laid Jimmy over the bonnet to press one last flurry of kisses over his face. Jimmy kept his arms looped around Thomas’s shoulders, though he let his feet dangle casually over the front bumper, where they swung merrily in the glow of the headlamps.

A giant yelp and a quick succession of loud thumps cut their romancing short. Jimmy rocketed up into a sitting position so quickly, it was almost comedic the way he seemed to leap into Thomas’s arms as he glowered back over his shoulder: Sybil’s riotous laughter escaped the Pinto’s open windows, making it obvious she had seen the whole thing after waiting on them in the car.

“I won’t stop you,” she sniggered, putting the seat back like she was ready to watch a show. “Pancake might, though,” she added as an afterthought, tossing her chin towards the seat beside her, where Pancake was growling moodily. 

“A problem for another day,” Jimmy decided after trying to wordlessly reason with Pancake through the windscreen. He turned back to Thomas to hold him again: “I’ve got me hands a bit full right now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been thinking about the end of this chapter since... last Christmas, when Abby was tracking my own roadtrip home to Brooklyn and she thought a roadtrip Thommy AU would be soooo fuuuun. Now look at it. I hope it came off well. Hopefully you were listening to Walk the Moon the whole time you read this, especially the song 'Blue Dress'. 
> 
> My shoulder is still really fucked up but hopefully by two weeks from now, it won't interrupt me too much.


	12. Daddy Issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group finally arrives in London.

 

They drove through the rest of the night without stopping over, but Thomas wasn’t sure he could have slept if they had. Or if he’d be able to lay next to Jimmy without pushing things too far. A little kiss was a lot different from wanting something intimate – or any of the other things that had been created by Thomas’s freshly-generated heartbeat. Inwardly, he was a bit of a discombobulated mess, his stomach churning violently and his organs twisted like his heart was hammering the inside of his skull and his brain crushed into the soles of his shoes. But their fingers had become entwined around one another, knuckles curved over knuckles that were bent around the stick shift. They had found each other so naturally, Thomas couldn’t rightly say how it had happened, but Jimmy’s skin was warm and calmed Thomas’s breathing. The Pinto’s engine thrummed through Jimmy and up the length of Thomas’s arm, like it was a jumpstart for the pistons in his heart.

Even though Sybil had caught them out almost immediately, she pretended like she wasn’t even there, leaving Thomas and Jimmy alone in the moonlight. Pancake, meanwhile, was noticeably moody, but also tired, which was a momentary blessing as he snoozed in the back. There was already so much to be scared of, which Thomas worried would be broken when the world shrugged off its shadowy mantle and replaced its coronet of moondust with its sunlit crown. Dreams were for the night, and Thomas was already certain he was about to be ripped out of yet another one with only Jimmy’s solar eyes to remember any of it by. All of it so real, but certain never to be as such again. Thomas held his breath, afraid to even exhale, to think, to pray, even if only in his head. It was so hard to act normal when he was nervous.

It was hard to tell what was on Jimmy’s mind, even with their hands touching as they were. Still grabbing hidden glances at Jimmy in the darkness, it was still just the same as it ever was. Thomas tried to keep his gaze in the air, where the stars hung above the fizzle of London’s urban glow, looming in the distance like an unfolding bloom, and tried to sort out how he had managed to grasp Jimmy just in time to enjoy him separate from the rest of the world – before London ate him whole and shoved their travelling party asunder. All they had left was this final night on the road, with the radio playing what Jimmy had adulated as his favorite song. This time, it was Thomas who twisted the dial to the right as they rode onwards: he needed it perhaps more than Jimmy did.

 _It’s time to leave this town,_  
_It’s time to steal away.  
__Let’s go get lost anywhere in the USA._  

_Let’s go get lost, let’s go get lost…._

For once, that was all Thomas wanted. Inside, he was screaming at Jimmy to floor it straight through London and then boomerang right back around the country again, but his nerves were too dulled to produce the words. Each time he thought he might bravely tell Jimmy that he’d rather just ride shotgun with him until the day he died, he realized how terrifying it was to admit that his entire life had been transformed this one boy and his rusty Pinto. It was even more frightening than the prospect of what he was going to do about his father or any of the other monstrous things that had wrecked his previous life. Somehow, he was going to survive it.

_Blue, you sit so pretty west of the one,  
_ _Sparkles light with yellow icing – just a mirror for the sun._

Something about Jimmy’s energy, like it was tinted the color of the stars – whatever impossible hue _that_ might be – snatched Thomas’s flitting eyes with a more fervent hold. There was a question flitting on his wetted lips, which still tasted like sunshine and cinnamon, the only proof that the kiss they’d shared in the meadow had actually occurred. He lightly touched his lips like they’d been bruised, the tip of his tongue darting between to have a more decided taste. _Had it been real, had it been real, had it been –_ the desperation to know what was in Jimmy’s head churned through Thomas’s skull over and over, berating the bone like the ocean against the shore.

_These smiling eyes are just a mirror for the sun._

After escaping the clutches of yet another English speed trap, Jimmy downshifted, carrying Thomas’s hand with his as the Pinto began to rumble with speed. Only the sky caught the Pinto’s elusive throttle into hyperdrive, speeding chaotically around bends like it might fly off the tarmac on squealing rubber. Inside the Pinto, Jimmy was recklessly grappling the steering wheel with one hand, laughing wildly into the night as the car swerved to and fro.

The action shook all the fear out of Thomas, like he’d been rocketed around the moon and dropped back through the stratosphere to find earth a different place than before. Jimmy was bathed in an alien glow and watching Thomas more than he was watching the road. “What?” he finally asked when he realized that Thomas was equally as vigilant of him.

_So much has come before – those battles lost and won.  
_ _This life is shining more forever in the sun._

For all his years and experience, it still took Thomas a few flabbergasted moments to formulate words with his blown-out mind. He was sure he sounded far less eloquent than he did, even though there wasn’t much complexity in his query.

“What happened before,” Thomas began slowly; “That weren’t just – just some trick of the moment or sommat, eh?”   

“Ey?” Jimmy sounded like he’d even forgotten.

“Back when we were stopped,” Thomas said with a swallow; “and you – you kissed me.”

The Pinto’s tires screamed against the tarmac as Jimmy made an irresponsible handbrake stop right in the middle of the motorway, and everything inside the car – passengers and luggage alike – all flew forward in a turbulent mess. Sybil knocked her forehead against the back of Thomas’s seat, while Pancake flopped awkwardly off the back bench with two front paws flying out from beneath him as the Pinto rocked back on its suspension. Jimmy had twisted in his seat so that he was facing Thomas, legs folded awkwardly as he hung between the seat back and the steering wheel.

“Well, we’re stopped again,” he said flatly, his contour halved by amber moonlight and shadow. “D’ya want me to kiss you again?”

_These smiling eyes are just a mirror for the sun._

The radio murmured softly, and Thomas breathed, his eyes darting towards the back of the car, where Sybil was quietly rearranging Pancake with the obliviousness of someone who was purposefully turning a blind eye. A long hand slipped beneath his chin to turn his attention back to the front, which Thomas quickly recognized as Jimmy’s. The blond held his attention with his thumb and forefinger pinched firmly around his delicate jawline, and studied him with a seriousness that made Thomas start to feel queasy again.

_Now let’s drink the stars – it’s time to steal away.  
_ _Let’s go get lost anywhere in the –_

Thomas lifted his gaze just as Jimmy was drawing nearer, pulling him closer by the chin until their lips touched once more. Jimmy still tasted like cinnamon and the sky, his tongue warm against Thomas’s chapped lips as he made his intentions for Thomas more than clear. Thomas still thought he was drifting in the middle of a dream, and had to grip the handle of his cricket bat, which was pinched steadfastly between knocking knees as he returned the favor to Jimmy with twice the ardor. He drew his spare hand against Jimmy’s cheek.

It was Pancake’s unhindered complaining that broke the moment, dragging Jimmy away from Thomas with an abruptness that left Thomas fumbling forward as he kissed the empty air. Disoriented, Thomas twisted around in his own seat to track Jimmy as the blond lifted himself onto his knees and stretched into the back to soothe his distressed pet. It seemed even Sybil’s attempts to distract the protective animal from Thomas and Jimmy hadn’t quite so effective.

“Quit your fussin’, dummy,” Jimmy admonished with affection Thomas couldn’t help but feel had been stolen from him. He felt like he’d been left alone with only the radio for company as Jimmy groped for Pancake, his perfect backside wiggling unhelpfully as he did so. “This ain’t goin’ to be like it was with the bloody Stuarts, right? All that drama and that – that’s just what we’re tryin’ to get away from, inn’it?” he told the dog, while Thomas was stuck admiring the way Jimmy’s burgundy trousers cupped his arse. If he hadn’t been so desperately curious to hear Jimmy spill a personal secret or two, he might have dragged the younger man back into another kiss with much less concern about it.

When Jimmy righted himself in the driver’s seat, reaching for the handbrake in order to disengage it, he shrugged with a cheerful sort of cynicism. “It’s a not like that at all,” he said, mostly to himself as he dropped the handbrake and reached for the stick shift again. Thomas swore Jimmy almost sounded _pleased_ with himself, like he had done something worth congratulating himself over.

As Jimmy put the car back into motion, Thomas bit his lip and decided to just let it lie, afraid that he might destroy the moment with words that kept poorly. He had enough of an answer to carry him at least through the night, and more than enough to make him bubble with a new, electric sort of excitement over Jimmy. A self-satisfied smile of his own tugged at the corner of Thomas’s lips, a flicker in the passing highway light as the Pinto motored on towards London.

_These smiling eyes are just a mirror for –  
_ _Your smiling eyes are just a mirror for…._

 

_\--_

 

Back when they’d just been leaving Oxford, Sybil had called ahead to her cousin, Rose, to let her know that she would be seeing her shortly. But when the urban sprawl began to sprout up around them, the hour had extended to the obscene, early morning – far too unnatural a time to come knocking, even for a planned visit. As they drove through the outskirts of the city, Sybil leaned between the front seats to ask if it would be a terrible inconvenience for her to stay on with them at Jimmy’s father’s until the sun had risen.

“I mean, I’d sort’ve assumed,” Jimmy said with an inconsequential toss of his shoulders. “Weren’t your sister’s man goin’ to step in and help Thomas or somethin’? Since his Oxford bloke turned out to be a slag?”

Though he was busy examining the roughly edged scenery outside the car, Thomas silently eavesdropped. He might have wondered if Jimmy had chosen that particular insult with intention if he wasn’t so distracted by curiosities about where in London Jimmy was taking them. Thomas had never visited the capitol enough to be familiar enough to recognize where they were going based on streets or unimportant landmarks. As it was, they seemed to be in an up-and-coming neighborhood, which boasted refurbished bits intermittently with dereliction and faded facades.

Sybil reached forward to knock Jimmy with a dose of playful stubbornness. “Of course he will,” she insisted, practically insulted that Jimmy would insinuate that she’d forgotten the offer. “Once I ask him, that is. Which I will do as soon as I’ve seen Rose later on.”

Just as Thomas was going to interject with a question about this so-called lawyer of Sybil’s, Jimmy was already on to the next thing. “What’s your Rose like, eh? Is she a Londoner as well?” Jimmy wanted to know, which was probably better anyway: Thomas still wasn’t sure it was a good idea to spread the details of what he’d done to his father, especially when he wasn’t quite sure what the true state of affairs back in Manchester was like. He’d been lucky so far, but that didn’t mean his fortune couldn’t twist backwards in the blink of an eye. He took salvation in the textured tape wrapped around his bat’s handle, the shape of his cross beneath his shirt as he flattened it into his chest with his thumb.

“She’s very fun – maybe a bit too fun, at least for anyone else in our family. Or so they’d have you think with the way they carry on about the American she’s been seeing,” Sybil replied, though Pancake was trying to capture her attention with his wet, lolling tongue, which worked to distract her with alarming speed. With a roll of his eyes, Thomas wondered if Pancake ever tired of hearing humans gush over how _cute_ they thought he was – and was then promptly wondered if Jimmy had the same problem.

At long last, when Jimmy finally turned the engine off, Thomas peered out of his window upon a crumbling street that lined a row of similarly beat-to-shit terraced houses. Thomas wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting their destination to look like, but it certainly was a sight posher than a forgotten flat in an up-and-coming neighborhood. It was the only house on the street void of electricity in the dim night air, and the front yard looked like it hadn’t seen a trim in months.

Still, there was a sense of rest as the motor quieted and Jimmy snapped off the headlamps. Sinking into his seat with a disparate sort of sigh, something seemed to have drained out of the blond, pooling somewhere near the accelerator. Even in the pinkish city glow, Thomas thought Jimmy suddenly seemed very small and even more youthful than usual, like he was drowning in a world far too large for him. It filled Thomas with an urgency to reach out and touch, and his fingers quietly crossed the center console to lightly flit across Jimmy’s elbow. Whatever Jimmy was experiencing, Thomas wanted to make it for two, and quietly asked if he could help.

“Maybe you and Sybil could carry everythin’ into the house while I take Pancake for a proper walk,” Jimmy evasively told the roof the car. “He could use the air.”

Thomas stared over at Jimmy, certain that there was more to it. “Is that all?” he pressed, unsure what he was probing for. It seemed awfully inconvenient to take Pancake out at such a ridiculous hour when he could just as easily be monitored in the yard for a bit.

His answer was the blinkering on of the ceiling light as Jimmy’s door creaked open. He slid the driver’s seat forward hastily, whistling for Pancake to follow as he drifted across the unkempt patch of grass that served as a front yard. Momentarily alone in the car with Sybil, Thomas dared to shoot her a concerned expression with eyes whose whites shone brightly in the gloom.

“I’m certain he’ll tell you,” Sybil said quietly, sensing Thomas’s distress.

“Why should he?” Thomas grumbled, struck very candidly with the reminder that he and Jimmy were still very new acquaintances. He kicked his own door open and distractedly let Sybil out of the back, his attention drawn across the roof of the Pinto to the darkened house’s front door, which Jimmy was in the process of unlocking. Fresh air suddenly sounded like an appealing prospect to Thomas as well, though his version of that usually involved a cigarette or three.

He and Sybil ferried as much as they could into the small terrace on their first trip. They entered the house to find Jimmy floating around the front room, snapping on lamps that burned with fizzing incandescence. Pancake orbited his master with a neurosis that even Thomas noticed, though Jimmy seemed oddly dedicated to his mission of illuminating the house. Awkwardly, Thomas and Sybil stood in the doorway with their laden arms and waited as Jimmy continued back to the kitchen.

“I’m _sure_ of it,” Sybil murmured, almost like she was trying to convince herself that Jimmy’s odd behavior would be explained, while Thomas squinted down at the carpet of unopened letters beneath their feet.

When Jimmy returned, he had Pancake on a lead, though Pancake didn’t seem particularly chuffed about it. Jimmy was a little less strange in the brightened house, but there was still something dismal about him. “Well, I’ll just round the corner and back,” he announced. “Lock up the car when you’re through, yeah?” He started to move forward like he couldn’t wait to get back outside.

It was Sybil who had the forthright disposition to ask, “Where should we leave everything? Should we mind your father’s sleep?”

“Oh,” Jimmy deflated, his escape not quite hasty enough to save him from the need to answer. “No, don’t worry,” he said rather vaguely. He twirled a hand around for visual effect as he said, “You can just put your stuff wherever. The couch pulls out an’ – I dunno, maybe you can bring me bag up to the room right at the top of the stairs?”

Thomas couldn’t help but note that Jimmy gave that final directive while fixedly looking at Thomas’s valise. As Jimmy and Pancake pushed between Sybil and him, Thomas tried to divine whether it would be presumptuous to lay his case down with Jimmy’s things in the same bedroom. He supposed it would be something to figure out once they’d emptied the car.

It only took two trips and a smoke break to unload the Pinto, which Thomas and Sybil completed long before Jimmy returned from his walk. Inside the flat, the pair did their best to make as little noise as possible while arranging the pile of luggage they’d brought in. Thomas unfolded the sofa-bed, while Sybil brewed up in the kitchen and returned on padded feet with two steaming teas. She handed one to Thomas, who was attempting to shuffle through the clutter of mail he’d swept up from the entryway; he absently set the mug aside and continued with his task as Sybil clambered up onto the sofa and leaned over the back, slipping her ennui through the slatted shades and out across the derelict street.

“Do _you_ think he’s alright?” she suddenly asked, deviating from her earlier attempts at positivity. The shout of unruly teenagers filled the air, perhaps a trigger for Sybil’s shift in demeanor.

“No,” Thomas answered succinctly as he endlessly flipped through the clutch of envelops in hand. They were all addressed to either Mr. Jimmy Kent or Mr. James Kent, and anything that wasn’t a solicitation or a bill, came stamped with a return address at HM Prison Wandsworth – dozens and dozens from over the last few months. “No, I don’t,” Thomas emphasized more robustly as the implications of what the letters might mean started to clarify. Each one sent from Wandsworth was very notably addressed to _Jimmy_.

“What sort of business d’ya think Jimmy’s father does?” Thomas posited dropping the letters into a neat pile on a nearby bureau. As he spoke, he pulled out the top drawer, oblivious to the concerned way Sybil was watching his hunched back as he rifled through it. The need to unravel the mystery stabbed itself straight through Thomas’s concern about Jimmy, who had only become funny once they’d pulled up to the flat. It didn’t soothe him to find the drawer mostly empty, save for a few dirty, bent spoons, a flick knife and a book of matches. There was also a snapped CD lying face-up with the other rubbish: once, it had been _Wish You Were Here_ , but now it was only a jagged piece of mirror as Thomas held it up to reflect half of his pale complexion back at him. Its shine spackled the room with dots of lights as the disc wobbled in his unsteady hand.  

“Maybe you should stop brooding,” Sybil suggested in lieu of a proper reply. She nodded at Jimmy’s duffel, where it squelched out like a flattened laundry sack and nudged Thomas’s case crookedly against it. “Do like he said and bring it all up to his room,” she continued, sinking back into the unfolded sofa with the squeak of old springs. “Then have a kip – you certainly deserve one.”

“But what about when Jimmy gets back?” Thomas fretted. Somewhere along the line, he had mentally committed to staying up with Jimmy until the morning light if it meant swatting away the unprecedented melancholy that had consumed the blond upon arriving.

“I’m sure he won’t complain if he’s got to squeeze into bed with _you_ ,” Sybil said with a suggestive wink. She started flinging her hands in the direction of the narrow staircase, repeating in a no-nonsense tone: “Now go. _Go_! Off with you!”

There was nothing to be done but to obey Sybil’s command. Thomas picked up Jimmy’s bag and slung it over one shoulder, and then boldly tightened his grip around the handle of his own leather case like he was planning to sneak something contraband in with the lot. It was only once he was halfway up the stairs that he realized he’d forgotten his cricket bat against the table in the front hall. Yet for the first time, he felt less in need of is protection, and clambered onwards without it.

Just as Jimmy had said, there was a room right at the top of the stairs, whose door stood slightly ajar, and marked it as Jimmy’s with a poster of Bobby Charlton taped to its mahogany veneer. Reaching out with a tentative hand, Thomas pushed the door inwards with the scrupulousness of someone who knew he was entering a place he wasn’t supposed to be. A rush of wind not generated by anything in the musty house struck through Thomas as the door opened, like all those silent secrets locked inside Jimmy’s head were about to be revealed to him in intimate and personalized detail.

The bedroom Thomas found behind the door seemed out of a storybook – somehow both uncanny in its description of Jimmy, yet oddly placed, like it had been frozen around the time Jimmy had been age twelve. There were more posters tacked over the striped wallpaper: footballers, skaters, surfers and rock stars alike. Above the twin-sized bed, a graphic poster proclaimed the words _Blood Sugar Sex Magik_ around a shape that resembled Jimmy’s tattoo exactly. On the bookshelf near the window, _Daredevil_ and _Hellboy_ comics were distributed just as prolifically as the likes of HG Wells, Asimov and even a bit of Kerouac and Wilde. Despite appearances, a boy had definitely come of age there – if only between the cracks of the peeling wallpaper.

Thomas warily stepped into the room like Jimmy would know he was trespassing all the way across the neighborhood, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He put down the luggage and made his way to the narrow bed, crumpling the huge rubber duck that adorned the bedspread as he experimentally tested the mattress. Smiling fondly at the yellow creature, Thomas smoothed his hands across the comforter. The print was cute – _Like Jimmy_ , Thomas remarked drolly to himself – and somehow still matched Jimmy as a young man, with his ridiculous dog and his golden coloring.

Beside the bed was a small bureau. Upon it stood a plastic lamp with a curved arm and a green hood covered in stickers that cast the room in an alien hue when Thomas switched it on. A dream catcher twisted gently from the lamp’s neck, its beaded tendrils ghosting over a framed photograph sitting below. Gingerly, Thomas reached over to pick it up, pursing lips that were just faintly reflected in the protective glass. The photograph was an old one, faded by too much sunlight. In it, a small boy with wild blond curls and a chubby face wore a tiny Man U jersey, perched in the arms of an older man with slicked, sandy hair in an identical shirt. They were smiling at each other, and each had a hand on a football. Squinting at the background, it looked as though they’d just gone to a match – back up north, Thomas managed to ascertain after some careful examination.

 _When he had a proper family, I s’pose_ , Thomas frowned, remembering all the little comments Jimmy had made in the last week about his broken home. With the clue weighing in his hand, he found himself lost in the maths of how long it had been since it had fallen apart, and then depressed himself with comparisons to his own unhappy childhood, which Thomas couldn’t bring himself to even be nostalgic for despite the prompt.

Carefully, he reset Jimmy’s photograph just as he’d found it, glancing around the room again. A desk laden with a rather high-end stereo and a modern turntable occupied the space at the foot of the bed, its accompanying chair piled high with records. The wardrobe against the wall nearest Thomas was just ajar, revealing the buttoned cuff of a suit jacket that appeared long enough to fit Jimmy’s adult frame; the beige wool looked pressed off, though unworn for some time.

However, alone in the bedroom, even amongst Jimmy’s things, and vaguely sedated by the boy’s scent, which thankfully managed to overpower the strange flat’s general odor, Thomas couldn’t bring himself to rest. An unsettling groan seemed to endlessly permeate through the house, like it was tired of standing, and might have long toppled over if it weren’t for the fact that it was held up by the homes on either side of it. The feeling was alarmingly familiar to Thomas, struck very pointedly by how even such wildly different details could still make a place seem so very much the same as the world he already knew. A world that was tired and worn and drowned.

Thomas decided perhaps a little walk around would stir fatigue within him. He got up and left Jimmy’s room, immediately struck with the contrast of the stark landing, which boasted two or three crooked pictures on the drab walls and not much else. Travelling around the bend of the stair rail, Thomas passed a darkened bathroom and another small room that might have once been a study, but was too full of boxes and other indistinguishable nonsense to really discern much else. Which left him at the end of the hall, where another partially closed door leaked a wedge of blackness so thick, Thomas almost thought he might tumble down a hole should he step through the shadow. It was easy to figure whose room it was by simple process of elimination.

He was about to shrug and return downstairs, when something occurred to him. Or rather, it _didn’t_. The house was just too unbearably quiet, even with Sybil puttering around in the front room. It was like no one was breathing, like the flat itself was a photograph too. On a hunch, Thomas reached for the door handle in front of him, not sure why he was so incensed by the notion, or why he felt nothing but the drive to do so. He gave it a push and hoped he was mistaken.

“Just what on God’s green and fuckworthy earth are you _doin’_ , Thomas?”

Thomas cringed, and slowly turned around to face Jimmy’s scowling face. The shorter man stood squarely, arms folded around the packet of envelopes Thomas had been sorting through earlier. At his feet sat Pancake, who was shooting Thomas an equally unimpressed expression.

“That’s me dad’s room,” Jimmy said as if the importance of such a statement should have been enough to scare some guilt into Thomas. “You can’t go in there.”

But it wasn’t the first time in his life that Thomas had been caught red-handed, and he quickly fell back on pride, mirroring Jimmy’s contrary stance. He knew he had been wrong to pry, but he had been too consumed by concern for Jimmy to twiddle his thumbs idly while something so uncannily _wrong_ sifted all around. “Can’t I?” he asked with an unintentionally disdainful air. “Or will I _disturb_ him, is it?”

Jimmy only continued to glower with red lips that seemed too unnaturally twisted to elicit a reply. His fingers crunched into the clutch of letters, perhaps tearing the paper on two or three of them.

So Thomas then decided to relieve his instinct, and returned Jimmy with a question of his own: “Exactly where is your father, Jimmy?” he asked with a resilience that flattened the shape of his gaze and his mouth. “I thought your plan was to visit him down here while you – what was it? _Cleared your head_?”

“And I plan to do both!” Jimmy scoffed indignantly, throwing his head back so he wouldn’t have to meet Thomas directly on. “So what if he ain’t home right now? It’s a place to settle for a spell. D’ya want me to start askin’ all the stupid questions I’ve come up with about _your_ father, son of a preacher man?”

A new sort of worry encroached upon Thomas at something that sounded almost like a veiled threat. How much had Jimmy _really_ taken in when he’d caught Thomas and Philip in the library? As it was, he’d been coasting on the fantasy that Jimmy still had no idea what he’d done, but maybe that was a dagger Jimmy had been hiding up his sleeve ever since Oxford. Maybe Thomas had been reading the entire situation backwards, and Jimmy’s current displeasure with him ran more in the vein of betrayal than defensiveness. Maybe Jimmy had been sending up some little hints the entire way that Thomas had been too wrapped up in himself to notice. Maybe it had seeded resentment in him when he discovered Thomas with Philip. And maybe – just _maybe_ – he knew enough about all of it to become dangerous.

Still, it wouldn’t do for Thomas to lose his cool. He kept his wits about him, though he toyed with fire as he inclined his chin at Jimmy: “Alright, then. Ask me. I won’t lie – not to you, anyway.”

“Right, then,” Jimmy said, clearly incensed. He also lifted his chin, putting on a strong front as he sought to fill in the most important gap; “Why’d’ya hate him so much, eh? Can’t just be all that transubstanti-whatever and bobbin’ up an’ down, can it?”

“That’s Catholics,” Thomas reacted automatically, not fully intending to sound as haughty as he did.

“Whatever,” Jimmy sniffed. “You still act guilty as sin. Or is that only Catholics, too?”

If it was possible for a person to be both relieved and heartbroken at the same time, then so was Thomas. Jimmy would be well aware of everything to do with his father if he’d overheard the things Thomas had feared, though it still made him sad to have to repeat them aloud to anyone. But a promise was a promise, and the last thing he was about to do was break one he’d made to Jimmy. “Maybe we should sit,” he suggested, relaxing his shoulders.

“ _Maybe_ ,” Jimmy repeated, still a bit tense. The ensuing silence that dithered between them even affected Pancake, who was nervously pawing the carpet like he was becoming upset, and only abated once Jimmy chose to spin on his heel, marching for his own bedroom. He made no indication for Thomas to follow, though Thomas took it as an invitation regardless.

Thomas reentered Jimmy’s bedroom to find it transformed. With Jimmy ruling it from the center of the mattress, cross-legged and very much _alive_ in his stroppy mood, the little space lost its time capsule-like quality. He’d plugged in a string of faerie lights taped around the top rim of the room, pasting upon the wallpaper diamonds of yellowed light that spread out like melting stars. It drew a slightly more comfortable picture for Thomas as he softly closed the door after Pancake, who’d come darting in like the Devil was in the walls outside. Perching on the tiny inch of space between the stereo and the edge of the desk, Thomas finally told Jimmy about suicidal Edward Courtenay – and how the death had sent Thomas reeling.

“I spent me whole life with me hypocritical dad preachin’ love and respect from the pulpit, while he boxed me ears round senseless for bein’ what – _who_ I am. But I could take it – I were used to it,” Thomas began slowly, careful not to go spilling too many details all at once, lest he overstep a boundary. Though he and Jimmy had crossed a particular threshold together, there still was so much he wasn’t sure he could admit about his past without frightening the blond – especially in such early, strange days. Subtracting truth wasn’t lying – or so he justified to himself. “Some other people,” he trailed off in a melancholy dream, “aren’t so callused.”

It wasn’t quite the answer Jimmy had been expecting, though perhaps he had a few threads and an idea. “He hurt you?” Jimmy whispered, instinctually reaching out for Pancake to calm himself down. “He hurt someone else?”

Deciding that Jimmy didn’t need to know any of the gory details about what sorts of terrors his father had put him through on a regular basis, he decided to simply surmise the main event instead. “He drove someone to madness,” Thomas explained as dully as he could. “Someone I used to love very much.”

“And he was goin’ to do you the same, callused or not,” Jimmy solemnly assessed, very still except for the fingers that twitched through Pancake’s fur. Even the dog seemed to sense the mood, whimpering sadly as he bent his massive head on the edge of the mattress, where a slobber stain instantly began to formulate.

Behind clouded eyes, Thomas could see the spittle dotting his father’s whiskers as he’d slurred at Thomas and told him Edward had done God’s will by taking his own life, and the way he’d practically told Thomas he might as well do the same. Then nothing but red: cherry lacquer, blood and rage. Thomas sucked it all down like he could keep it trapped in his belly with enough of a breath.

“I-In a word,” Thomas agreed, blankly staring at Jimmy’s long, knobby fingers as they twirled through Pancake’s fur. It almost made Thomas wish he could pet the dog as well, though he ended up just groping for his cigarettes instead.

Jimmy didn’t attempt to stop Thomas as he pulled out his lighter and a fresh smoke, pressing it between his lips to spark it up. Jimmy even went so far as to point out a little trashcan beside the desk, which Thomas could use for his ash, and then went back to silently petting his dog. Smoke trembling around Thomas’s face, the familiar scent of his cigarette brand hazing out the damp smell that dominated the air, which Thomas could almost swear etched the faintest of smiles upon Jimmy’s Botticelli lips. He wished he knew every secret trick to conjuring a smile on that mouth, and took a calming pleasure in trying to imagine the ways.

By the time Thomas had smoked his cigarette down to a short, he was looking for a place to stub it out, while Jimmy quietly requested one of his own. “I don’t hate me dad,” Jimmy suddenly told Thomas as he accepted the packet and lighter from his dark-haired companion.

On a nearby shelf, Thomas discovered a half-dead potted fern whose soil was a suitable dumping ground for Thomas’s finished cigarette. He twisted the filter into the dirt and arched his eyebrows at Jimmy, encouraging him to continue.

Jimmy was having trouble with the lighter, clicking it like he couldn’t quite get the coordination of it right. He spoke only once he’d sorted it and had a few puffs of his own. “I mean, maybe he ain’t the _perfect_ dad, but he’s mine – an’ – an’ he _tries_ ,” Jimmy imparted through a drifting fog of nicotine-laced smoke.

He dropped Thomas’s lighter and remaining cigarettes onto the rubber duck bedspread, forcing Thomas to get up and perch at the foot of the bed to get himself a new light. He brought the trash can with him, setting it between his foot and Pancake’s flank. The dog glared first at the bin, and then up at Thomas, like he was blaming him for some sort of crime in Jimmy. _“Guilty,”_ Thomas mouthed at Pancake, ignorant of whether or not Jimmy took notice. He flicked the lighter against his second cigarette like he was making a statement.

“He gave me Pancake,” Jimmy suddenly volunteered, and Thomas nearly choked on his smoke and his self-satisfaction at the announcement. Tapping ash into the rubbish bin, Thomas struggled to regain his breath and entreated a silent question with watery eyes. He felt like a fourteen-year old having his first smoke to show off to his first crush – which was wholly embarrassing for a man his age.

“He were just a pup, but apparently some stupid sod didn’t realize what big bugger he’d get to be,” Jimmy went on, while Thomas continued his attempt to recover. “An’ dad found him and brought him home in a big box just for me.” A heavy cloud of smoke petered between Jimmy’s lips as he pressed a row of pensive knuckles against his cheek. “He and mum had a row about it – but that was back when they’d started rowin’ about everythin’, seemed like.”

“No wonder you’ve become such mates,” Thomas said gently, giving Pancake a look he never had before. Maybe he _was_ sort of cute – in a dopey, loyal sort of way. And he _was_ rather fluffy, which was probably nice to touch when things were stressful. A tiny Jimmy cowering behind the safety of such a large friend when his parents fought suddenly seemed like the most practical thing in the world. He could just imagine the little hands wrapped around Pancake’s scruffy neck.

“Mum always hated Pancake, ‘specially after she kicked dad out,” Jimmy frowned crookedly at his cigarette, which was threatening to ash all over his bright, yellow covers. He let the mess shatter across the inside arch of his trainer, flipping the tweak of his lips as his nails dug themselves deeper into Pancake’s fur. “She said the dog were just a shameless ploy to win me affections – or sommat.”

Thomas couldn’t help himself: “Was he, though?” He was still scrutinizing Pancake like there was something new to be learned about the grumpy dog. To be fair, it at least made more sense why Pancake was constantly making a fuss about his master’s wellbeing: getting on was perhaps a more herculean task for Jimmy than the blond would ever let on.

“Pancake, you mean?” Jimmy chirped as another forgotten clump of ash disintegrated onto his shoe. Shaking his head, he absently wiped it onto the ground, mindless of the trash bin mere inches away, and gave his answer to the stained blue carpet that blanketed the floor. “I get why me mum chucked him out – I do. But it never changed the way he treated me,” Jimmy said with a stifled chuckle. He took a few drags on his cigarette, adding, “Always were his little boy, right?”

In a parallel universe, in another time – with another person – Thomas might have been exceedingly jealous to hear something like that. (He had always been a little bitter about Philip’s privileged background and first-world problems, which were comparatively nothing.) But as Thomas looked at Jimmy, forlorn and lonely on his yellow duckling coverlets, all he could think of was how similar they were. _A whole life spent tryin’ to understand,_ was what struck Thomas as he took Jimmy in for the hundred-millionth time; _A whole life just tryin’ to hold a hand._

“Still his little boy,” Jimmy murmured, this time to Pancake, who whimpered despite the attention Jimmy was still lavishing upon him. “He still writes me, and he’ll be home soon,” Jimmy announced very resolutely, stubbing his cigarette out on his trainer, which made Thomas wince for fear that the pinprick of fire would seer its way through the canvas and into Jimmy’s skin. “Any day now, he’ll be home.”

Ripped in two, Thomas wasn’t sure how to be affectionate and still get to the bottom of Jimmy’s doldrums without being direct. He hoped his attempt at blending the two made for a palatable brew: “Is that what he says when he writes you from Wandsworth?” Thomas asked carefully, picking out the bundle of letters still tucked under Jimmy’s arm with his gaze. Thomas took the time to finish his own cigarette and plant it in the fern pot before he added the most distinguishing element of his query: “At Her Majesty’s pleasure, is it?”  

“He’s not all bad, right?” Jimmy was quick to say, though his avoidance of a proper response was answer enough. “He’s not got much, but he’s given me all he does. Like this old dump an’ a little money. His old, vintage coup which were just more quid for me to let me do whatever I please.” Jimmy beat his chest with a hollow thump of his fist. “When he comes home, he’ll find a proper man where his wimpy little son used to be. Nothin’ to laugh at there.”

“Who’d ever laugh at you?” Thomas asked seriously, daring to inch that much closer to Jimmy on the bed, their knees just short of kissing one another as Thomas leaned in. “You and your red trainers and your skateboardin’. Your…” he trailed off with a hiccup of nerves as he reached up for the curl of blond hair spinning over Jimmy’s brow, lightly skimming it across Jimmy’s scalp; “Your little ducktail of yellow fringe an’ all your animals. How could I ever laugh at that?”

Jimmy’s eyes fluttered closed as Thomas’s fingers slid through his hair, the bundle of letters raining haplessly from beneath Jimmy’s arm as his entire posture relaxed beneath Thomas’s touch. Something about the way Thomas’s hand scooped around the shape of Jimmy’s ear to cradle his cheek must have had a profound impact on Pancake, because for once, the dog was strangely quiet, almost like he knew he was witnessing a momentous thing. That the night, there in the dim, green glow of Jimmy’s bedside lamp, belonged to just the pair of them, and that the small kiss Thomas laid on Jimmy’s forehead lit the room up in an intimate bioluminescence all their own.    

It was Jimmy who first made the peacefulness between them sway, though it seemed to be the cup of Thomas’s palm that gave him the strength to say anything at all. “Me hometown up in Yorkshire used to have a bit of a heroin problem ‘til me dad moved down here,” Jimmy admitted shamefully, a particularly distressed crease folding his mouth into a grimace. “S’pose the coppers are a bit more stringent on dealin’ that kind of thing than they are up north.” He laughed, almost like he was trying to make light of such a serious admission: “Pretty idiotic, me – how long it took me to put all that together. I used to be real proud of me dad – thought he was a proper self-made success story, always buyin’ me toys or clothes or anythin’ I ever wanted.”

“Oh, come now, Jimmy,” Thomas admonished, pulling back so that he could press each of his hands onto Jimmy’s shoulders, shaking him slightly. “You were just a kid goin’ back an’ forth between adults who don’t ever explain themselves properly. How’re you to blame for not knowin’ any of that?”

“Me mum really went through it, and I made it worse,” Jimmy said heavily. He searched out Thomas’s cigarettes, one of which Thomas wordlessly offered Jimmy out of pure instinct. He helped Jimmy light it, listening intently as Jimmy elaborated. “I never understood why she’d get so damn mardy whenever she’d put me an’ Pancake on the train for weekends down here. I guess it weren’t so bad ‘til they took dad and it all sunk in he weren’t just off vacationing like mum said.”

Bathed in such vulnerability, Thomas couldn’t help but find Jimmy somehow more beautiful than he’d ever caught him before. The viridian lamplight caught in Jimmy’s pale eyelashes and highlighted his lips, his cheeks, through which Thomas could swear he saw a little smile.

“Little boy still holdin’ his breath too long, I s’pose,” Jimmy murmured through his half-formed smirk, almost like he knew Thomas was carefully watching him through the shape of his smoky exhalations.

Despite the waning cigarette pinched between Jimmy’s fingers, Thomas couldn’t help reaching in to fold Jimmy into a much more entwining embrace. He pushed Jimmy’s nose into the crook of his neck and gripped a clump of his hair, resolutely telling him, “Not when I look at you. That’s not who I see.”

A tremble ran down the length of Jimmy’s body, which only made Thomas press him tighter. The cigarette was burning out next to Thomas’s ear, powdering his back with a clump of grey ash as it died, but Thomas hardly noticed as Jimmy’s nose and cheeks began to heat up against his skin. “You’re lovely,” he mumbled into Jimmy’s hair, pressing him close. He pretended like he didn’t notice the subtle dampness spreading along the shoulder seam of his shirt, and instead just reiterated sweet nothings against Jimmy’s face to soothe him. “And you’re here. You’re here – and you’re with me.”

Jimmy seemed to crumble, his arms collapsing around Thomas’s body like his muscles had suddenly gone to jelly. Thomas didn’t even care if the dead cigarette that tumbled from Jimmy’s grasp had irrevocably destroyed his shirt with smeared cinders, too overwhelmed by what it meant to hold Jimmy with such mutual familiarity. Still, he couldn’t help the quick flick of his gaze to check on Pancake from behind the safety of Jimmy’s bicep. The St. Bernard was still loitering in the same puddle of drool at the edge of the bed, though he seemed to be growing bored – or at least, satisfied – with their display. Thomas was almost more shocked when Pancake soon bumbled off to make a pallet out of Jimmy’s sock-stuffed duffel than he was by the fact that Jimmy was still wrapped tightly around his shoulders and sniveling against his collar. It was oddly satisfying to consider that perhaps Pancake had afforded him an ounce of trust with Jimmy at last.    

His thoughts were disrupted when Jimmy crushed an almost indecipherable sentence against Thomas’s jawline, his twitching lips tickling Thomas almost like a series of tiny kisses. The sensation was almost impossible for Thomas to distinguish, especially in the jade gloaming that encapsulated the little space, but he soon made out a meek whisper through Jimmy’s teeth. “How’d you know a thing like that?” he murmured; “No one’s ever called me somethin’ like _that_ before.”

“Lovely?” Thomas repeated, unsure how there could be any confusion about it. His first impression of Jimmy hadn’t been anything but. He could still hear the Welsh waves and the tune of _Earth Angel_ as he rolled the word around in his mind. His eyelids fluttered as he pressed his nose into Jimmy’s hair, “I just did.”

Jimmy’s embrace grew snugger, and then immediately loosened as the blond shuffled a bit further back onto the bed. He was wrangling his feet out of his trainers and socks, which Thomas also partook in with careful mimicry. Then Jimmy laid back against the single stack of pillows behind him, also vibrant with rubber ducks, and silently lifted his arms out to Thomas like he wanted another hug. “They’re my favorite,” he murmured as Thomas drew near and slid between Jimmy’s outstretched arms, which folded around his torso and pulled their bodies flush against one another on the narrow bed.

The pair barely fit on the child-sized mattress, and had to shuffle a bit to get their arrangement just right. Thomas rolled over so that Jimmy could clasp his hands around his waist, his face nuzzled in the space between his twin shoulder blades almost like he was holding Pancake. Despite both men still being fully dressed in trousers and shirts and all, Thomas wasn’t sure he’d ever been held so intimately The heat of Jimmy’s bare forearm still seared through to his flesh like they were wearing only souls and bare emotions. The notion was so overpowering and frightening at once, Thomas had to reach for the beside lamp’s switch to snap the room from unreal green back to urban pink in an effort to settle himself. Regardless, his eyelids stung as he stared into the strangely bright night, which was still pin-pricked with the stars that hung on wires inside Jimmy’s room.

Against his back, he heard Jimmy whisper, “I’m glad I found you, Thomas.”

Reaching for the knot of Jimmy’s hands, Thomas covered them with his own and quietly murmured, “Me too, Jimmy.” A peacefulness finally descended upon him, dragging all his anxieties through the carpet and far away as he repeated it with more clarity: “I’m glad you found me too.”  

 


	13. Spaceship Coupe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy recover from their first nothing fight; Sybil and Thomas visit a solicitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY HOW LATE THIS IS, BUT MY LIFE HAS BEEN REDONK LATELY. I HOPE THE LENGTH AND CONTENT OF THIS CHAPTER MAKES UP FOR THE DELAY. I REALLY, REALLY DO. 
> 
> I stayed up late finishing this, so I know I'll have to comb through it for edits later, but I wanted to put it up on a remote schedule! Hopefully the sexy Justin Timberlake title gives you a hint of what the rewards for your patience is ;D

 

A musical laugh and the glee of Pancake’s barking served as a morning alarm for Thomas and Jimmy. Thomas’s eyes slit open at the hullaballoo, though it still took him time to place himself and the ownership of the arms twined around his middle. As Jimmy’s old bedroom, now doused in morning light, faded in and out of focus, Thomas pushed himself up on one elbow as he sought the source of such early merriment.

It didn’t take long: Sybil was perched on the edge of the desk, just where Thomas had been sitting the night before, ferociously petting Pancake as she giggled at her mobile. “Don’t let the sun catch you, loverboys,” she chortled, which instantly sent Thomas into high alert. He ricocheted up into a sitting position, remembering very clearly the exchange he and Jimmy had shared before falling asleep in each other’s arms. Now, clothed or otherwise, they had been caught.

“I-It’s not what you think,” Thomas insisted as Jimmy fumbled across the tiny bed for Thomas’s body.

“Isn’t it?” Sybil crooned as she lifted her mobile like she meant to snap a photograph. There mere implication sent Thomas reeling, his first instinct to leap across the room and slap the device out of Sybil’s dainty hands.

“It really isn’t,” Thomas muttered under his breath, his eyes narrowed in Jimmy’s direction. The blond was still curled up on the bed, one stray arm absently thumping the warm indentation where Thomas had once been.

“Give it time,” Sybil said with a rather smug tilt of her chin. Then she pushed up from the desk, popping to hear feet as she started to leave the room, “Now let’s get a move on, you lazy lovers. Breakfast’s about to go cold.”

“ _Breakfast_?” Thomas emphasized as he trailed after her, now vaguely aware of the faint aromas of bacon and fried potato wafting from downstairs. He lingered in the bedroom’s doorway, his hands clamped on either post as he hung into the hallway and watched her head for the stairs: “Breakfast out’ve _what_? Magic?”

“There’s a corner store a few streets away,” Sybil answered with a shrug as she started to make her descent. “I found it whilst taking Pancake on a walk this morning – since _someone_ seemed a little too tuckered out to do so!” She burst into a fit of giggles and then practically skipped the rest of the way down.

Thomas flew across the hall, halfway down the top step as he bent over the rail to shout desperately in Jimmy’s defense, “He drove us halfway round the country. Of _course_ he’s tired!” The smell of a properly cooked meal was even more evident as he did so, and was tantalizing enough that Thomas almost forgot what he was scolding Sybil for. Distinct reminders of how the Welsh bed and breakfast where they’d found Sybil pushed much of that out of his mind.

Their volume must have woken Jimmy, because he had suddenly materialized at Thomas’s side just as his voice had finished its work. “What’s goin’ on?” he mumbled, dragging a finger through heavy eyelashes to force out the fatigue. He seemed a little fuzzy on more than just the morning’s events, as his slow intake of everything around him brought on small increments of recollection. His beautiful blue irises, darkened by his heavy lashes, swung back around to Thomas as he tiredly wondered aloud, “Did I kiss you last night?”

Jerking his head up to give Jimmy a quixotic look, still half bent over the railing over a crooked knee and the top stair. “That’s it? That’s your first question?”

“Shouldn’t it be?” Jimmy smiled lazily and leaned against the rail just as if he were casually reclining against his Pinto, or propping himself up on the nose of his skateboard. He matched Thomas’s quirked brow with one of his own: “Isn’t it the most important one?”

Thomas coughed, though it was one he generated from the depths of his chest to win himself a few precious seconds to think. What had transpired between them had been so much more decadent than a kiss, or even sex – though how to phrase that seemed to be beyond his usual wit. Instead, he nervously pulled his bottom lip in beneath his top one, sucking it as he played with his cross through the undone placket of his shirt. Jimmy caught him at it.

“I didn’t, did I,” Jimmy announced firmly as he reached for Thomas’s sleeve to give him a jerk. Thomas’s weight on the stair just below put their faces at an almost equal height, which made Jimmy’s intention almost immediately clear once he’s snagged Thomas’s attention. “I’d like to fix that, if you don’t mind,” Jimmy murmured softly, his voice like a command to the world around them to settle and quiet while they took time for their affections.

The faint, “Alright,” that Thomas tried to eke out was pushed right back down his throat as Jimmy came in strong for his kiss. It was different from the gentle, almost playful ones they’d shared in the field: this kiss was passionate – a firm articulation of who Jimmy would like Thomas to be. Similar sentiments within Thomas brought out a matching response, and he kissed him back with an ardor that exceeded even Jimmy’s most forward advance. Teetering dangerously at the top step, the exchanged threatened to send them either toppling down the stairs with a push too zealous from Jimmy, or twist them into a pile of limbs should Thomas grow any more forceful. As it was, Thomas had to grip the bannister with a strength that could have splintered the cheap wood as he fought to keep his grace: this morning Jimmy tasted of cherryade and residual bubblegum, an effervescence which crackled through Thomas with an unending _pop, pop, pop_! He reached up to touch Jimmy’s face.

But then Jimmy was withdrawing, though his face was catlike and sly. “I’ll come to expect that in future,” Jimmy smirked.  

“You said you liked hugs best,” Thomas protested, not about to let even something as sensual as Jimmy’s mouth distract him from keeping the upper hand.

“I do. Usually,” said Jimmy, sauntering by his rumpled, slept-in clothes and bedraggled hair that stood up from his scalp almost vertically with unwashed hair gel and dog drool. Hovering for just a brief moment, just as he was about to start down the stairs, he grabbed a handful of Thomas’s shirt and dragged their noses close enough to touch at the tip: “But there ain’t much too _usual_ about you, is there?” he said with no shortage in cheek.

Then he released Thomas and continued on his way, oblivious to how taken Thomas was by even his unruly bedroom state as he went. “Thank about _that_ next time you let me off to bed so rudely!” Jimmy added on as he got to the bottom and headed off for the kitchen, flattening his hair as he went, while Thomas was left to chase after the piece of himself that had gone wobbly and skittish to hear Jimmy tell him such things.

When Thomas had finally composed himself enough to join the others in the kitchen for breakfast, he was not disappointed by the sumptuous spread. However, when he entered the room, Jimmy was too busy giving Sybil a concerned speech to be eating. Unsure it was his place to interrupt, Thomas slid into the only empty chair around the tiny, folding table and silently began to tuck in. He supposed that even if Jimmy wanted to get his words in, Sybil’s hard work behind the stove wasn’t going to go to waste – not if Thomas Barrow had anything to do about it, anyway.

“A pretty lady in this neighborhood alone is just not a good idea. You could’ve easily been mugged, or stabbed, or – or _worse_ ,” Jimmy was in the process of repeating to Sybil, an agitated fork waving through the air. Pancake sat on the floor between his master and the target of his lecture in hopes that the banger stuck on its tines might come flying his way in a fit of passion. His tail flipped back and forth across the floor patiently, eagerly: it was only a matter of time.

“I’m tougher than a I look, and there was simply nothing but canned beans and raisins in the pantry,” Sybil answered with an irritation that hadn’t come to the surface before. “And I had Pancake with me, which scares off even the most dangerous looking sorts.”

“ _I’d’ve_ run from Sybil and Pancake,” Thomas interjected, knowing full well his comment was unhelpful. He couldn’t help but stir the pot just a little, also aware that he had nothing to lose by doing so. The amusement it brought him – evident in the unapologetic grin that crunched his toast to one side of his mouth – was certainly worth the effort. “By the way,” he added with a small nod to Sybil, “Delicious, all this.”

“Well, you still should’ve woken me,” Jimmy grumbled, still making moody articulations with his fork. “Would hate to think somethin’ happened to you when it was s’posed to be on my watch.”

But Sybil was shaking her head, a victorious sort of grin dominating her round features as she took out her mobile and whipped it around to face the other two. “And disrupt _this_? I’d walk through Hell, first,” she scoffed, tapping the filtered Instagram photo on her screen, which depicted Jimmy curled up behind Thomas in the morning light, their arms a winding embrace at the waist. There was no word for the exact tone of red that suddenly radiated across Thomas’s entire body when he got a look at the image.

Meanwhile, Jimmy was staring at Sybil with a very hardened, neutral expression. “I sure hope to Christ on a cracker that you tagged me in that,” Jimmy said in a way that might have sounded threatening in another context. “Make ‘em all jealous, what?” he added with a laugh down at Pancake, flicking his fork so that the greasy sausage landed right in front of Pancake’s waiting paws.

Suddenly, the temperature in the room shifted, like someone had snuck in and thrown a hidden switch. Thomas dropped the piece of toast he’d been munching on in favor of crossing his arms, moodily saying to Jimmy, “Oh. Is that was this is all about, then? Teasin’ your little – menage et trois, or – or _whatever_ you left up in Yorkshire?”

Jimmy busied himself with pronging himself another banger, though his expression was almost irritatingly casual as he shrugged, saying nothing.

“My life is not at anyone else’s expense!” Thomas suddenly roared, standing up with such unexpected ferocity, the rickety chair he’d been occupying flipped backwards and landed with its legs quivering towards the heavens. “You cherrypick me off the road to flirt and toy with me for a week,” Thomas went on, marching through a tirade of his own as Jimmy and Sybil looked on in flabbergast; “You let me kiss you and hold you and it’s all just some _joke_ to you? So you can make some stupid… _girl_ fall all over you again? Not even I’m that bloody low – and I’m as low as they get, God damn you, Jimmy Kent!”

Jimmy was chewing his sausage very, very, _very_ slowly as he watched Thomas’s irate display, though it was hard to read the exact nature of his mood as he did so. He took his time in swallowing his food, and even bothered to wipe his mouth with one of the paper napkins folded beneath the toast plate. Crumpling it up, he dropped it on his own dish and said in a dangerously low tone, “I thought you were smarter than that.” He got up and snapped his fingers at Pancake, who carried his half-chewed sausage with him when he got up to follow. “Take the Pinto if you’ve got any errands in town, Sybil,” Jimmy said just as he and Pancake were about to exit the kitchen; “Keys are hangin’ by the door. You’re still on me watch and all.”

It wasn’t until Jimmy had gone and Thomas had righted his chair for the sole purpose of collapsing back into it, stunned, that Sybil gave him a piece of her mind. “And what was _that_ , pray, tell?” she admonished, acting as if she had been the one in the middle of the row. If it was even really a row at all.

“Exactly what it looked like,” Thomas muttered as he shoved his hands between his inwardly turned knees; “A game.”

“It was not,” Sybil sighed, just short of complaining how stupid men could be. She marched right up to Jimmy’s vacated chair and plopped down into it, pulling out her phone to show Thomas to early-morning photograph again: “ _That_ is anything but a game.”

“You saw the whole thing, end to end,” Thomas bemoaned, refusing to look up and reexamine the picture the way Sybil was trying to coax him to. “Whether it’s to wind up that silly girl, or her silly brother – or even his silly friend,” Thomas sighed, “I were just another prop in his scheme.”

“Well, I think you went a bit far. So determined that nobody _likes_ you, aren’t you just,” Sybil sighed once she realized waving her mobile under Thomas’s nose wasn’t going to get the result she desired. She turned the phone around so she could look at the image for herself, almost like she was trying to prove herself wrong with some weird, secret detail that only Thomas saw, and had escaped noticed when she’d first snapped the shot. “I think you just hurt his feelings, really,” she finally concluded, her voice gentle and soft as she lost herself in the genuine sweetness that she’d captured in that moment.

“So what if I did,” grumbled Thomas.

“Lightning doesn’t strike every day, Thomas! It certainly won’t strike twice!” Sybil admonished with a cry so passionate, she nearly flung her phone halfway across the kitchen, where the counters were still mucked with the frenzied remains of opened tins and unsealed packages. “For all you know,” she continued as she served herself a small helping of veg, “he’s upstairs lamenting that all you’ve been doing this week is chasing tail, and you’re only annoyed that you haven’t even managed to get a fumble out of him.”

Aghast, Thomas stared across the table at her with crookedly split lips. “What are you, MI6 or sommat?” he sneered. “Should I start callin’ you Miss Moneypenny?” It was obvious by his candor that Thomas wasn’t out to endear his friendship with Sybil by christening her with a fun, new nickname.

Sybil sidestepped the insult easily, and glibly replied: “I don’t know. Unless that _has_ been the case, and the person who I’ve been wrong about this whole time is you, Thomas.”

Her eyelashes, which were thick and curled even without makeup, fluttered upwards as she caught Thomas’s startled expression from across the way. The feeling of being peeled apart like an onion was an inexplicable one to Thomas, but he felt skins he didn’t even know he had crusting away the longer Sybil stared at him. Ashamed she might even find a way to his most devastating, violent secret, Thomas looked away in shame, struck very harshly with the reality that his defenses were coming undone by frayed, loose threads. Perhaps he was coming so undone, he was in danger of unspooling even the things about himself he liked best.

 _But she **is** wrong about you – they all are, Thomas_, muttered a cruel voice in the back of his mind: _You know well and good not one of them could love a murderer._ The voice then became sickeningly gleeful, like it was a dancing devil on each of his shoulders, chortling into both ears: _Because that’s what you are! A murderer! Murderer, murderer, murder –_

Ever his own worst enemy, Thomas drove both his fists into the tabletop with enough power to make the cutlery jump to life and dance for a split second. _“_ I just don’t want to hurt him, okay!?” he shouted in an effort to drown out the inward taunting, hating to death how time and time again, he found his own, foolish self at the root of his problems. He sucked in a powerful breath and began to gently massage his stinging hands, continuing in a much softer tone, “I don’t want him to think I’m takin’ advantage or anythin’. I just want….” 

He trailed off, not needing to complete the sentence. They both knew exactly what he meant. 

“Listen,” said Sybil, hoping to be more cheerful; “Why don’t I take you with me into town and we’ll do a little sight-seeing in the car. Then we’ll have an adventure trying to find where Mathew’s office is, and you can talk to him about your problem, which I’m sure he’ll be happy to help with.

Though he was still a bit distraught, the idea was doing well to distract Thomas. He interrupted Sybil with a simple, important question, however: “Are you sure he will?”

“You leave that to me,” Sybil told him very firmly, which actually made Thomas laugh as he considered the image of little Sybil ordering her bigshot, brother-in-law lawyer around for some arbitrary bloke she’d just met. He had a feeling this wouldn’t be the first time Sybil had twisted the ropes for a charity case, though.

By the time he was fully listening again, Sybil had already mapped out an entire day for them. “After that, it’ll have been plenty of time for little Jimmy to have had a cool down, and I’ll drop you back before I go off to see Rose,” Sybil was concluding with a decisive nod.

“But what if he’s not,” Thomas worried, the image of Jimmy’s aggravated face still fresh. “What if he just leaves me on the front step to rot?”

“Then he’ll just have to sit there with you until you’ve talked it out,” Sybil decided with another resolute bob of her head. She leaned back in her chair, her nose horizontal with the ceiling as she pushed back on the back two legs of her chair and sighed, “You men are such babies.”

Thomas wasn’t thoroughly convinced, still a bit more fixated on the fact that he’d acted so stupidly and had now threatened to make a mess of the whole thing before it had even got off the ground. “Maybe it’s better if I just tag along with you and Rose before I see Jimmy,” he tried, while Sybil rocked back and forth on her chair. “Then I’ll have had the whole day to make sure nothin’ else I say is wrong.”

“Rose and I will be shopping all afternoon. No room for boys – even your sort.” Sybil let the front two legs of her chair crunch into the linoleum flooring and waved the suggestion off with a flap of her hand. “Besides,” she went on, folding her arms cutely over her pink trackie top, “if you’re going to fret about it all afternoon, I think it’s better the pair of you do it together.”

Thomas didn’t look convinced, despite Sybil’s earnestness.

Apparently, Sybil had already decided that Thomas was going to go along with her plan whether he liked it or not. “Just shut up and trust me, will you?” she insisted as she finished picking through her breakfast. Then she started to clear away the plates, wrapping up what hadn’t been finished for the refrigerator. Thomas silently got up to help her.

When that chore had been finished, Jimmy still hadn’t reemerged, so Sybil shrugged and carried on with her plan like Jimmy had nothing to do with anything she had lined up for the day. Thomas continued at her heels with the demeanor of a shadow, darkly hovering at her back as she retrieved the Pinto’s keys from the hook by the door. Instead, he stared at his cricket bat, which was still leaning against the nearby front hall table, and used it to internally berate his conscious to a bloody pulp as he considered all the stupid things he’d just allowed his foolish mouth to invent.

It didn’t even register to Thomas that he was still swathed in the same wrinkled clothing he’d slept in until he was back in the Pinto and Sybil was slamming the door shut on the driver’s side. Her struggle to start the vintage automobile, with all her jangling of keys and peering about the steering wheel, went largely unnoticed by Thomas, who was more preoccupied with the car’s very particular smell, which matched the scent Jimmy had pressed into the fabric of his shirt. Then the Pinto whinnied and the radio popped on – “ _Ask me, ask me: I won’t say no, how could” –_ and Thomas realized with stunning clarity just how ensnared he’d become.

It was a rocky lurch down the street as Sybil tried to operate the manual car with the same finesse that Jimmy did. It wasn’t until Thomas was certain that he was going to sick if his anxieties merged with the constant stop-start of Sybil’s inexperience with a stick shift. He threw an arm out to halt her progress. Perhaps only a shade paler than usual, he then thinly asked if he might take the wheel.

“A little distraction might help,” he lied when Sybil gave him a very suspicious frown. Still, she relinquished control of the Pinto without an argument, and kept her misgivings to herself. They both exited the vehicle and circled round the tail to exchange places.

Partially because of age, but mostly because of all the time had spent around Tom and nearly every sort of motorized vehicle in Manchester, Thomas had a much easier time with the Pinto’s clutch. He hadn’t designed it as such, but there was something liberating about having such control over the car, and let it ride a bit faster than was probably safe for urban streets. A little getaway would do everyone some good: _To clear our heads a bit_ , Thomas thought as Sybil’s directions towards central London floated abstractly in his ear.

Sybil wanted to drive by every famous landmark downtown as if she’d never seen any of them before. Thomas placated her without prying too deeply about her previous London experience, somewhat soothed by her innocent display of marvel as they motored along the Thames, through Westminster and by the London Eye and Saint Paul’s. He was too distracted to wonder why, too low to want to steal her joy, and dumbly steered the Pinto around London at her discretion. It was only after a half hour of shameless tourism from within the confines of the car that Sybil gave him any sort of indication of where the offices of her sister’s intended were.

Merton and Son was located in Southwark. When they got there, it took Thomas an additional quarter of an hour to find a place to park the Pinto, which might have normally annoyed him if driving hadn’t been the one thing keeping his disquiet from splattering against the windscreen. He was well aware that he was on the brink of overreaction after his odd encounter with Jimmy that morning, but it was hard to keep himself from fretting that the slightest thing was going to push Jimmy right by him, their connection a mere drop in a vast and turbulent ocean. It was unhelpful in his quest to absolve himself of the relentless guilt that had been accruing since Manchester. If anything, it served to remind Thomas that he was only ever destructive, and he was fooling himself to believe otherwise.

 _At least we’ll try settlin’ a chunk of it_ , he thought, absently following the trail set by Sybil’s white trainers as she glided across the dirty pavement. His father might have been a nearly forgotten tragedy up north, but there was only so long he could hide beneath a sky blue umbrella before the rainstorm soaked him through anyway. He did his best not to think of Jimmy standing beneath such an azure canopy, curved handle in hand as he splashed through the rain: it only made him think of that gloomy afternoon the Pinto had run out of fuel and Jimmy had gone hurrying through the stormy weather to remedy it. Thomas could still see the flash of bright green mackintosh in the mist, the slap of feet through puddles as he ran.

Uncertain of exactly how many steps he’d taken – or even quite how he’d come to be there – Thomas found himself standing beside Sybil in the rather humble office of her sister’s fiancé. Mathew was apparently a far less pretentious person than Sybil’s eldest sister, which Thomas supposed was how they balanced out as a match. Still, he waited quietly while Sybil and her future brother-in-law engaged in the sort of familial greeting that he had never had a chance to experience for himself, awkwardly hanging back as he tried to ascertain how he ought to carry himself through such an alien exchange. He opted for the sort of self-indulgent pride that had so often aided him in the past.

He almost tripped himself up with that very same arrogance when the conversation abruptly shifted its focus to him. Mathew was holding out a hand for a friendly shake, while Thomas gaped down at it as if it was offensive and confusing in its presence.

After dangling his hand for a few seconds too long, Mathew realized he wasn’t going to get a handshake out of Thomas and withdrew. He cleared his throat in an effort to appear nonchalant, though it was obvious he was a bit at a loss when such a common form of introduction didn’t take. “Erm, so – Thomas, is it? – I hear you’re in need of my services?” he tried alternately. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s gone on?”

Thomas had to knock himself out of his typical habits, forcefully reminding himself that this Mathew was the last barrier between salvation and a life of crime. He very candidly told Mathew the story as he knew it, careful to emphasize that the incident had been provoked. Strangely, every detail flew through his lips without the ambivalent uncertainty that had dragged at Thomas’s heels while waiting on baited breath for Jimmy to indicate himself in any way to him. In contrast, Thomas had no fear about sharing the root of his father’s disgust with Mathew, and was only concerned with how it affected Mathew’s professional opinion on the matter. He was only dimly aware that Sybil was also hearing this story for the first time until the gentle whine of the door as she slipped out of the office stopped his narration cold.

“And?” Mathew had a tone like he was spellbound by a tale whose end he’d been cheated out of. “Is he dead? It’s hard to gather from what I’ve heard about this on the radio.”

“I don’t know,” Thomas admitted with a slow shrug. “I guess so.”

“It’s a tad troublesome if that’s the case, you know – though it _does_ rather sound like you were pushed over the brink. But it’s a long shot if you’ve done your worst,” Mathew said candidly. He was raking his hands through his sandy fringe like it would help him consider all the options more carefully. He indicated that Thomas have a seat in one of the twin chairs that mirrored his desk before settling down behind it. He formed a diamond with his thumbs and forefingers, thoughtfully staring up at the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair and thought aloud: “Do you at least have anyone who can corroborate all this? Or at least your father’s history with you?”

“I s’pose Tom could. He’s me best friend from home,” Thomas drawled with uncertainty. “Or me sister’s bezzie, Phyllis – who always were kind to me whenever she noticed how me dad could be. And somewhere,” Thomas swallowed; “Somewhere, there’s a note Edward left for his family.”

Mathew was scrupulously copying down notes on a pad of paper. “And this letter, that’s how you found out about it?” he asked as his pencil swiveled back and forth in his grip; “That your father incited the suicide?”

Thomas vigorously shook his head and tightened his fists around the arms of his chair. “No. I never read it – or even what became of it. That all were almost four years gone at this stage,” he detailed for the solicitor. “Not that anyone had to be so coarse to have an idea about it.”

“And so?” Mathew prodded, glancing up at Thomas with arched eyebrows. “How did _you_ get that idea?”

“Oh,” Thomas flinched, realizing that he was being rather opaque about elements of the whole debacle. He hadn’t even got to the point of sharing some of the finer points of what had transpired with Philip, and had almost forgotten that he was in the presence of someone infinitely more helpful. He drummed his fingers against the beveled curves of his chair’s arms and explained more fruitfully.

“He virtually confirmed it with his own lips, that,” he informed Mathew, darkly glowering at a little stuffed dog that was drooping over the edge of the desk. The grubby creature reminded him so viscerally of Jimmy and his feelings for him, that Thomas had to fight a rise in bile as he spoke about the way his father had so callously degraded such sentiments. “I’d learned to weather the things he’d say,” Thomas went on, choked with an onslaught of emotions that was literally making him ill; “But one mornin’, he told me outright I were a disgrace to God’s image. One sinner had heard God’s word and done what were asked of him; why was his own son so bloody _deaf_?”

On that final word, Thomas’s passion got the better of him as one hand flew off the chair and pounded a bruise into his thigh. He was numb to the pain, almost completely glazed over as he went through the whole plot.

“A religious person on the jury bench might argue with you,” Mathew said, carefully trying to avoid the implication that he agreed with such things.

“I don’t even think God Himself would dare,” Thomas cried, still sick with grief. “The bastard laughed at me. He goddamn says those things to me and then _laughs_. Like it were all a fabulous joke. Like what Edward had done were goddamn _funny_. ‘At least one of you horrid little fairies had the sense to do his goodly penance,’ says he; ‘When will you catch up, you daft sack of shit?’”

“And that was what did it, was it?” Mathew sought to clarify, though it was apparent he was having difficulty keeping his face neutral after hearing about such cruelty. He rocked back in his chair, his hands laced over his waistcoat as he thoughtfully turned his chin towards the ceiling once more. “A crime of passion, undoubtedly.”

“I wish I had a more black and white story to tell you. That he came at me or sommat,” Thomas returned morosely. He ordered himself not to be a hysteric nancyboy who would cry. “An’ I’d understand if you thought it were too much of a gamble to intervene. I’m amazed Sybil convinced you to even listen in the first place.”

“This is my _job_. I’ll find a way, so don’t you stress about any of that. You’ve had enough to muddle through,” Mathew emphasized in a way that exuded a sort of universal goodliness that was rare in most people Thomas had come across – particularly solicitors.

They were interrupted by a soft rapping at the door. Both men twisted just as the door was pushed inwards just enough to accommodate Sybil as she poked her head into the room. “I was just wondering what the status was?” she inquired with a sheepish expression that was impossible to be annoyed at. “It’s just that Rose is texting me, wondering when I’m going to meet her.”

Though Thomas was the one with the car keys, he felt caught in the middle. Mouth opened for a reply he didn’t have, Thomas shot Mathew a questioning look, unsure if there was anything else to be done for the day.

Mathew was clever enough to hear Thomas’s unspoken question, and made a shooing motion at him. “I’ll start looking into it,” he promised as Thomas stood up. He placed both his hands flat on the desk and returned Thomas’s uncertain expression with an unwavering one of his own: “It’s not lost yet, Thomas.”

On that note, Thomas fled Mathew’s office, suddenly overwhelmed with more emotion than he’d ever been troubled with at once. It was a different sort of feeling than he was used to – a totally opposite color to the charged dissatisfaction that was typical for him. In the lobby of Merton and Son, Sybil stood with an almost dumbfounded look on her face as Thomas fell against her and sobbed. All she knew to do was loop her arms around him and hug fiercely.

Neither of them spoke about the visit to Mathew’s office on the way back to the Pinto, and Thomas preferred it that way. He was thoroughly embarrassed that his life had transformed into such a pathetic charity case, and even more so that Sybil had to witness him shed tears over things he’d never allowed himself to properly cry about before. He appreciated the fact that Sybil seemed to naturally understand that nothing about their errand needed to reach Jimmy’s ears – not yet, anyway. Thomas needed time to formulate the best way to broach the subject – perhaps once he had more answers about just how bleak his future would be. Things were already a bit delicate with Jimmy, just short of puffing up in smoke like some sort of engineered imagining, and it gave Thomas a vague sense of control to think that there was still something left for him to choose.

It wasn’t until they were both buckled into the Pinto’s twin front seats that a word passed between them. “Where shall I drop you?” Thomas asked as genially as possible, though his voice still quavered the slightest bit.

“I’m to meet Rose in Carnaby Street, so if you could just bring me to that general area on your way, that’d be lovely,” Sybil told him as he revved the engine. It clattered to life with its usual sputter, though without Jimmy behind the wheel, the radio was at a notably more realistic volume. The music blended it with the London din that chugged in every direction around the Pinto.

“How will you get back to Jimmy’s? Or will you just stay out with your cousin?” Thomas wondered as he pulled into traffic, once again finding relaxation in the operation of the classic vehicle. When Sybil had no immediate reaction, he shot her a parenting glare that behooved any responsible elder brother. “I won’t have you repeatin’ what you did at breakfast, wanderin’ about after hours where it’s unsafe,” he admonished her. Then he made a hasty decision: “I’ll come collect you later, perhaps. To keep an eye out.”

The unexpected zeal of Thomas’s speech won a cheeky smile out of Sybil. She cocked her head at him, her mobile poised between her hands like she had been in the middle of composing a text: “I’m a big girl, Thomas,” she said with an air of amusement. “I can take care of myself.”

 “I’d rather not have you murdered in the night,” Thomas countered with deadly seriousness. “Not on our watch.”

A smirk colored Sybil’s face, though it was ambiguous if it was because of Thomas’s demeanor or his colloquial slip – which she seemed to have interpreted as intentional. “Will it soothe you if I made certain to get a ride home, then?” she simpered sweetly at the side of Thomas’s face, while he glowered irately at the traffic ahead of them. Affectionately she added, “You ridiculous barmpot.”

“It would,” he said through a frown he cast through the windscreen. London was expectantly crowded with an unyielding crawl of other cars, lorries, buses, cyclists – and everything in between. The part of him that dreaded his eventual chat with Jimmy about their morning argument also missed the opportunity to have a built-in escape route should it go south. “It really, really would,” he repeated, mostly for his own sake. His second iteration of the words came at a low mumble, hardly audible over the scream of other vehicles and the Pinto’s own distinctive cacophony of sound.

Somehow, Thomas managed to deposit Sybil close to her destination without too much unexpected hassle. He let her off curbside along Reagent Street, where she popped out of the Pinto with more jaunt than should have been allowed. She heaved the door closed and skipped out of the street, but bent through the rolled-down window on Thomas’s side to leave a parting word.

“Don’t look so glum, Prudence,” she said with a twinkling glance at the radio, which was quietly humming the Beatles song of the same name. “Everything is going to work out for the best – you’ll see.”

Thomas almost wished she wouldn’t, though he was still unable to keep a ghostly hint of smile from the right corner of his mouth. “I s’pose I will,” he agreed, albeit with less enthusiasm than Sybil. He was much more inclined to the surety of pessimism, but he kept it to himself as Sybil bumped an encouraging fist against the Pinto and walked off. As he sat there, idling the car’s engine and ruminating laboriously, Thomas continually found himself losing altitude when he envisioned his inevitable demise. ‘The best’ usually didn’t feature Thomas with any particular luck or favor.

An irritated car bleat from behind jolted Thomas out of his dark contemplation. He hastened to get the Pinto back in gear, though not without an irritated toss of two fingers through the open window – regardless of the fact that he had been the one holding up traffic. The tires burned against the tarmac as Thomas stamped on the accelerator, wishing he could push the car fast enough so that he might fly away. He wished he wasn’t so afraid of standing up for himself. Of hurting Jimmy. Of about five hundred things that made him unsure he was worth the salvation.

Yet, despite how easily Thomas might have escaped over the horizon with the Pinto, he still found himself returning to Jimmy’s door. He was left lethargic by his own melodrama and the muddled chemicals that made him do the stupid things he never had the proper explanations for, but which he did anyway. The same lassitude kept him from ringing the bell straight away, leaving him to stand on the stairs with his fist half-raised, like he thought he might knock, but wasn’t positive it was such a good plan. He tried to imagine what Jimmy was doing on the other side of the door, or perhaps a fiction of what the blond might have got up to while he and Sybil had been out. The strain of it made Thomas clutch his forehead as he spun around and hunkered down on the lowest step, elbows bent over knees as he tried to calm himself down. His respiration was audible and harsh.

 _What am I even doin’?_ he lamented inwardly, repeating the phrase in hopes he might come up with an answer each time. Usually, it was: _Fuck’s sake, Thomas._

“You waitin’ to sprout into a fungus on me doorstep or what?”

Startled by the very voice Thomas felt so underprepared to hear, he twisted around and stared upward, where Jimmy was looming beneath the lintel with the door propped open behind his foot, a wad of gum squashed between his teeth. His arms were crossed defensively, his face an unreadable mask, but Thomas was still struck with how otherworldly his features were. Even in the overcast weather and the derelict urban scene that framed him, Jimmy glowed like something that had dropped through the very strata of heaven. Perhaps he’d even scorched a line of storm clouds in his wake as he fell.  

 _An orphaned angel,_ was Thomas’s next thought, oblivious to the way his bottom lip was plumped into the slightest of pouts. _An orphaned angel abandoned in London with a devil spat up from hell. Quite a pair, we are…._

“Where’s Sybil?” came the sharp interruption to Thomas’s musing. The question was punctuated with the loud pop of bubblegum, which Jimmy was smacking rudely as he waited on a reply. In the entryway behind him, Pancake gave an additional yip of challenge, like he was some sort of backup force to Jimmy’s presence.

“With her family,” Thomas answered from his hunched position on the bottom step. The concrete that formed it bit through his trousers with an uncomfortable chill; he shifted his weight nervously. Quickly, he nipped Jimmy’s incoming retort in the bud: “I’ve insisted she’s to be driven back here afterwards.”

Jimmy contemplated Thomas for the length of time it took to engorge another humungous bubble out of his gum. He popped it and grunted, “Good.”

A swell of dissonance filled the next gap of silence between them, checkered with the wail of a siren and rushing vehicles. Somewhere in the distance, someone was shouting indistinguishably over the clattering symphony surrounding them. Then, with another rude smack of his gum, Jimmy commented rather plainly, “I’m surprised you came back.”

Eyes rounded in surprise, Thomas blinked up at Jimmy with a quirked eyebrow. “Why’d you think a thing like that?” he gawked, unnerved that Jimmy saw his through to his innermost secrets so transparently.

“Well, you’ve already done a runner,” Jimmy candidly replied with another explosion of gum across his chin. “Figured it were somethin’ you might try again. Y’know – when things got mucky and that.”

“It were me who was out of order,” Thomas hurriedly interceded, pulse quickening with anticipation for the lashing he figured he deserved. He pivoted onto his thigh, leaning heavily upon it as he petitioned Jimmy’s forgiveness for his morning outburst: “I’m not particularly good at believin’ what other people tell me,” he admitted, though the fact wasn’t a particularly revolutionary one. “So I’d understand if you wanted to give me a right proper shoeing for – “

But Thomas should have already supposed that Jimmy wouldn’t be interested in a wordy apology. “Shut it,” the blond abruptly cut in, leaning more heavily through the doorway. “Just shut it and get inside.”

Because he’d been expecting the boot, the command came as even more of a shock to Thomas, though he probably should have been used to Jimmy’s mercurial moods by then. It took him a moment to process it, through which Jimmy bent back into the house on bare heels, his attention caught on something inside. Still, Thomas felt as though he’d been left on steps that had shrunk to the width of a tight rope, his only balance a thin wire hooked to the muscular young man above him.

Teetering with uncertainty, Thomas only had the wherewithal to wonder, “But aren’t you cross with me?” He felt like he was about to fall through the broken pavement and back into the underworld he’d come crawling out of.

Jimmy leaned back through the door, hanging over Thomas like he’d been inverted upside down. “Did I say I was?” he countered, his yellow curls dripping over his brow and shadowing his lidded eyes. “Or is that just another brilliant guess of yours?”

The capillaries in Thomas’s cheeks exploded and colored his skin a deep rose hue. So he’d been caught out at his own foolishness, tongue-tied and choked on anything worth saying back. Nervously, he pushed his slicked hair back, rearranging it self-consciously. His attention flicked back up to the doorway to catch a flash of tartan as Jimmy whirled back into the house. He was replaced by the auburn and white countenance of Pancake, who had been crowding the space around Jimmy’s legs and giving Thomas the eye between the gap of Jimmy’s knees. Thomas half expected the dog to knock him onto his ass, but was instead greeted with a hearty lick. The sound that stuttered out of Thomas as the slobbery hound assaulted him with his lolling tongue was positively embarrassing.

It took enormous strength for Thomas to finally shove Pancake aside and clamber to his feet, suddenly bursting with a sort of urgency to chase Jimmy into the house. He felt as though he’d been a lingering ghost who had been kicked into a strange new reality, the tattered, white sheets he’d been hiding beneath suddenly ripped from over his head. The front door slammed behind Thomas as he turned the corner and found himself very nearly blinded by the halo rimming Jimmy’s form when he skidded straight into the other man’s chest. They stumbled against each other, steadied only when Jimmy wrapped an arm around Thomas’s waist, and Thomas flung a hand out to catch himself against the wall. Then they lingered, staring at one another like it was the first time either of them had been afforded the opportunity to ever look.

“Pancake and I talked about it – while you were out, that is,” Jimmy murmured at length; “We decided we aren’t too bent about it after all.”

Thomas’s voice was heavy in Jimmy’s ear as his head pooled with memories of lying in Jimmy’s arms the night before. “I’m sorry anyway,” he breathed, though he somehow had the inclination that Jimmy already knew. Instead, he wished only to wind himself around Jimmy’s body and illustrate his apology in a much more physical fashion. He wondered if it would be alright to at least kiss Jimmy again.

Before Thomas got a chance to follow through on his instinct, Jimmy had floated away. Thomas drifted into the front parlor after him, where a film flickered on the television in the corner. Jimmy sat down in front of it like he’d completely forgotten any of his grievances with Thomas. Pancake hurried join his master on the floor, tail held proudly in the air as he trotted by Thomas.

Despite the cleared air, Thomas could only dither at the room’s mouth and watch, convinced that he still wasn’t quite invited to join the inseparable pair on the rug. He drifted to the sofa that lined the wall opposite the telly, unable to keep his hands settled in any one spot when he sat. He felt so powerless as he watched Jimmy stretch out next to his dog, like he’d been tied down to the cushions and forced to linger outside – even when he’d been invited in. As per usual, any quiet moment that left Thomas to his own devices only gave him more opportunity to overthink and worry about everything under the sun.

Jimmy’s chin was propped in one hand as he noisily chewed a wad of bubblegum, popping it loudly as he continued to watch the television. On the sofa behind him, Thomas could barely concentrate on the screen. Instead, his gaze zigzagged across Jimmy’s back, travelling over the appealing cup of his bottom in his shorts and up the length of crisscrossed calves, which extended into the bare feet that bounced happily in the air behind him. Each flick they made seemed reminiscent of the way Pancake’s tail was flopping back and forth against his master’s thigh. Thomas, however, was more transfixed by the way the bony knobs in Jimmy’s ankles clunked together every time his distinctively large feet bumped into one another. There was something pleasantly intimate about the curl of Jimmy’s long toes free of their usual Van Doren casings. It gave him pause about the form of other parts of Jimmy’s anatomy he had yet to unwrap, and then sent a shudder through him when he considered the possibility.

A joke in the film, which Thomas missed entirely, sent Jimmy rolling across the floor in laughter. He grabbed Pancake and buried his nose into his thick fur to stifle his amusement. The display pleased Thomas enough to charm a smile out of him. “You seem happy,” he commented as Jimmy’s amusement abated.

Releasing Pancake to roll over on his back, Jimmy propped himself up on his elbows, one leg extended out beside a bent one. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he drawled, his eyelids heavier than usual as he carelessly met Thomas’s gaze. He blew an enormous Bazooka bubble and speared it from beneath with his tongue.

“Well,” Thomas stalled, his thoughts sticky with the gum caking Jimmy’s upper lip. “You were fairly upset at those things I said this mornin’.”

“An’ you said you were sorry,” Jimmy replied, shuffling into a more upright position. He flipped forward onto his knees, crossing his arms as he continued his rhythm of chew, bubble, pop, lick – a wholly distracting practice as far as Thomas was concerned – and waited for Thomas to supply his concern. Interestingly, Pancake was more enthralled by the telly than anything to do with the two men.

Thomas took his time choosing his words, abnormally focused on shoehorning his feet out of the red trainers. “I s’pose I’d sort of understand if you were just tryin’ to be civil and that. Sorry ain’t always enough, right?” Thomas said, feeling rather brave that he was so forwardly articulating a worry he might have otherwise internalized to the point of bitterness. “An’ a lot of that shite weren’t even anythin’ I meant to lob at you,” he furthered, much to his own extended surprise. “Mostly troubles left over from Philip, if I’m honest.”

 _Chew, chew, pop!_ Jimmy was casting him an expression Thomas didn’t expect as he swallowed another tantalizing, pink bubble and started to drag himself across the shaggy carpet, inching towards Thomas on his knees. “An’ you think that’s enough to keep me cross at you forever?” Jimmy asked with a sly curl to his lip, now near enough to lay a hand on each of Thomas’s knees. He leaned over and laid a gentle kiss atop Thomas’s left patella, glancing up at Thomas’s startled face to admonish him: “You think I just agree even when I don’t want to, is it?”

“Ahh – I….” Thomas was interrupted from giving a proper response as Jimmy bent in the opposite direction to kiss Thomas’s other knee. He lingered a little more on the right one, and Thomas could feel the warmth sink right through the crinkled pleat of his trousers and into the bone. It took a labored pump of his heart to remind Thomas that he was still alive.

“I don’t do shit I don’t want to, Thomas Barrow,” Jimmy said, interrupting Thomas’s chance to reply. He then stuck his index finger between his teeth to fish out his expired gum, drawing it slowly between his lips before he wordlessly stuck it underneath the sofa. All the while, his gaze never once wavered from Thomas’s, glimmering with a hundred things that Jimmy had no words for – and a hundred others that Thomas did.

So – with a bold swallow – Thomas reached for Jimmy and cupped his face, thumbs stroking the little yellow tendrils of hair that fell around his ears as he said, “Then you should kiss me. ‘Cause you want to.”

The challenge wafted through Jimmy in the form of a slowly realized smirk, which grew in cheekiness as Jimmy pushed himself up onto his knees to follow through. He inched up Thomas’s chest with his spidery fingers until their torsos were flush against one another, and his teeth were caught on the top button of Thomas’s shirt. Then he was pushing himself into Thomas’s lap, his legs straddling Thomas’s thighs as Thomas’s hands fell limply over the sofa cushions. Clamped between Jimmy’s knees, Jimmy gripped Thomas’s shoulders and crushed their mouths together. The kiss was strong, and set Thomas’s passion on fire. A stifled whimper of defeated pleasure was tangled up beneath exploratory tongues and lips.

When they parted, Thomas was instantly aware of two things: firstly, Pancake was still glued to the vicinity of the television, though he had turned his massive head to survey any furthered progress between Thomas and Jimmy with the judgmental scrutiny of a parent. Secondly, Jimmy was almost as delighted by their kiss as Thomas was – indicated very profoundly in the warming vicinity between their aligned hips. Jimmy wiggled in Thomas’s lap in a teasing fashion, leaning his forehead against the other man’s to exchange the same air; he looped his arms more decisively around Thomas’s neck to do so.

“What sort of creature are you?” Thomas gasped breathlessly, his pulse ticking to near silence as he basked in the halo of warmth that radiated off of Jimmy’s very skin. “Where did you come from? You and your ridiculous Pinto, your even more ridiculous dog and all?” He spoke reverently, as if he had been granted a sacred epiphany that blinded him with an obscene breed of faith – the sort that made him want to worship Jimmy like kissing and touching was a kind of prayer. His hands crept towards the angles of Jimmy’s body like he was about to lay hands on something magical. His eyelashes fluttered closed in disbelief when he caught a tracing of his own face glistening amid the flecks in Jimmy’s blue irises.

“If I remember it rightly,” Jimmy chuckled softly, “I came along the day I nearly crashed me _ridiculous Pinto_ through some greasy spoon you were eatin’ in whilst on the run.”

“You crashed it straight through my goddamn heart,” Thomas countered with such passion, it was almost stunning. He hadn’t expected such a deep confession to come flooding out in such a way, but now that it was done, Thomas could only hope the raw honesty didn’t intimidate Jimmy. In his own mind, Thomas was still convinced that he wasn’t anything special to the beautiful youth in his arms.  

“Fire an’ brimstone, big boy,” Jimmy whispered thickly, catching Thomas’s chin in the dip between his thumb and index finger. He leaned in to capture another sensuous kiss, which surprised Thomas only for an instant – and then melted into another erotic exchange of emotions.

Thomas’s arms tightened around Jimmy’s waist and urgently pressed him as close as possible; it was almost torturous to feel exactly what Jimmy was working with at such close proximity. “I’d crawl through hell at this point,” Thomas gasped between kisses; “For God’s bloody _sake_ , I just need you. Today. Now.”

Anything else he might have tried to iterate were swallowed as Jimmy tilted his head to kiss Thomas from the opposite angle. He was heaving up against Thomas in a wordless display of assent, unable to inhibit his building rapture as his every kiss crashed against Thomas with intensified passion.

“Me too,” Jimmy mumbled indistinguishably against Thomas’s red lips. “I can’t believe how quickly it’s come on, but I do.” What might have passed for a groan dribbled down Thomas’s chin as Jimmy rocked more arduously into him, rising up on powerful thighs to run the proof of his desire along the contour of Thomas’s torso.  

“Well, don’t just rush in,” Thomas was hasty to say, nevermind that the sensation caused by the heat of Jimmy’s erection through their clothing was too maddening to form truly coherent thoughts. “Don’t just drag me down by the throat on just a whim. I don’t think I could take it, me….” His anxieties were hard to beat down, even in the face of everything he’d been dreaming about for the last week.

Jimmy’s roving lips had travelling along Thomas’s delicate jawline to adore the space beneath one ear. As he licked a trail down the curve of Thomas’s neck, he made a breathy admission: “A week ago, that were me – have a ride and then forget all about it once the fun’s through,” he said between kisses, which were salty with Thomas’s sweat; “That were me about five days, eighteen hours and – um….” He paused to lift his wristwatch into view before finishing: “Eighteen hours and about twenty minutes ago.”

One of Thomas’s palms found the back of Jimmy’s head, fingers threaded through golden curls as he tilted his gaze heavenward. “Well, what’s changed?” he panted up at the popcorn ceiling overhead. There was no escaping the curiosity, even if the answer was rife with the danger of uncertainty. Trying to hold Jimmy was about as easy as catching a thundercloud.

Jimmy’s response was not what Thomas had expected, though – not even in the slightest. “The difference is that now I’m in love,” Jimmy said decisively, even going so far as to pull back and quest for Thomas’s eye. “And I don’t want it to feel good for only a minute.”

Thomas almost laughed, so certain was he that Jimmy was toying with him. His gaze flicked down at Jimmy for a moment, long enough to lay defenses into his tone as he replied. “Ha! Isn’t that the oldest trick in the book?” he managed to force through all the physical distraction that engulfed him. “You think I’m such an idiot, I’d fall for that just so you can get thrown on your back?” 

“I think you’re a bloody liar, that’s what,” Jimmy interrupted, brutally kicking Thomas’s precautionary blues aside. He grabbed for Thomas’s face to ensure that they were locked in one another’s stare as he finished his cheeky demand. “Now get me upstairs – or I’ll drag you,” he commanded Thomas with an authority that shot straight through Thomas’s loins. “Or worse, I’ll fuck you right here for Sybil and all her friends to see when they arrive – I swear to Christ, I will.”

The clarity of the suggestion made Thomas’s entire frame tremble with fresh anticipation. He grabbed at Jimmy with sounder hands, slipping them under Jimmy’s bottom to lift him up and against his own body. Jimmy fell forward and caught himself on the back of the sofa, shifting with rhythmic desire as they kissed again. Thomas entertained it for a few moments more before he was overwhelmed with the need to scoop Jimmy up and hurry him along towards the stairs. It was only Jimmy’s legs suddenly tightening around Thomas’s torso as Thomas scrambled to his feet that kept Jimmy from toppling to the floor.

Thomas managed to carry Jimmy to the foot of the stairs before the blond’s weight and squirming kisses sent the pair of them spilling across the bottom steps. Jimmy didn’t seem to care where Thomas wanted to love him, just so long as he got to keep him ensnared in the twist of his limbs. “Wait, wait,” Thomas tried to protest whenever he tried to gather Jimmy into his arms again, not quite sure he was crude enough to be as inconsequential about their locale.

With a laugh, Jimmy nipped at Thomas’s lips, clearly amused by Thomas’s perpetual external cognizance. He gave the other man a bit of a push and then flipped over to hop back up again. “I told you,” Jimmy called over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time, climbing to the sanctuary of his room with exuberance; “I don’t do shit I don’t want to do!”

Thomas slapped the step that Jimmy had just been stretched across and then took to his feet like a runner leaping off the blocks. From upstairs, Jimmy’s gleeful laughter continued to resonate through the dreary house like a siren’s bell. Thomas reached the entrance of Jimmy’s bedroom just in time to catch the younger man shuffling through a handful of mix tapes; he met Thomas with a devilish grin, abruptly discarding the other cassettes with a clatter around his feet once he found what he was looking for. 

Before Thomas could fully comprehend what was happening, Jimmy was slamming his chosen cassette into his stereo’s tape deck – _rewind, forward, push pause, play –_ and then was grabbing twin fistfuls of Thomas’s shirt, yanking him into the room with unhindered intention. Thomas tripped over foolish feet and allowed himself to be drawn towards the little bed by his golden incubus. A sexy beat filled his ears, bumping down each of his vertebrae and rocking his hips beneath Jimmy’s long hands.

_And with the top down, we’ll cruise around,  
_ _Land and make love on the moon –_

Jimmy’s backwards propulsion sent him careening into the edge of the mattress, triggering his knees to collapse beneath him. His rubber ducky comforter exploded around his thighs as he crashed onto the mattress, his arms still encircling Thomas like nothing could bend them away. Jimmy’s entire body worked in time with the track he’d put on the radio, even as his fingers negotiated the buckle of Thomas’s belt, ripped the tails of his shirt over his waistband, pulled and tugged and explored with urgency. Thomas was quick to offer his own aid.

Up and over Jimmy’s head went the raglan shirt he’d been sporting, flung aside and followed soon after by Thomas’s own button-up. Bare shoulders and the gorgeous roll of Jimmy’s trapezius captivated Thomas’s attention as he stood between Jimmy’s spread thighs, frozen with erotic shock as Jimmy went back to the business of undressing him. In the drafty house, Thomas’s nipples had been quick to harden beneath the masculine hair that dirtied his bare chest, the cross about his neck icy against his sternum, but the warmth of Jimmy’s skin did more than enough to compensate – so much so, that Thomas almost lost himself in a trance as his trousers pooled around his ankles, and Jimmy’s deft fingers singed his flesh through the thin cotton of his underwear. There was no secreting the enormity of his need anymore.

“Is all this for me?” Jimmy breathed raggedly as he shimmied the elastic of Thomas’s boxer briefs over his hardened cock, practically licking his lips at the sight of it.

The question snapped Thomas out of his daze. Quickly, he grabbed Jimmy by the wrists, widening their berth around his swollen cock. The elastic of his underwear snapped back into place over his navel. “Are you certain this is somethin’ you want to do?” Thomas cautioned, worried that Jimmy was being impetuous and impulsive – as usual. “It’s a long way from just kissin’ one of your mates.”

Forcibly, Jimmy fought Thomas’s powerful grip, and at least managed to get his palms back on Thomas’s hips. “Kissed a lot more than just _one_ of me mates, Thomas. _Done_ a lot more than that with ‘em, too,” he retorted with a bedroom gaze that was anything but amateur. “I ain’t no blushin’ bride. And I ain’t about to start.”

The cheekiness of Jimmy’s reaction made Thomas’s respiration switch to an unpredictable patter almost immediately. He could barely contain himself enough to allow Jimmy much more than a little nuzzle between his legs, positive he’d spill the prize before they’d even got started at such a rate. He gripped a handful of Jimmy’s hair to tilt his head back, though it only won him a more direct view of the smirk Jimmy wore. That was all it took to clamp down on Thomas’s urges: he released Jimmy only to shove him onto his back. Jimmy hit the mattress with a bounce and a dark laugh, while Thomas almost immediately clambered after him on his hands and knees.

Holding himself above Jimmy, there was a brief pause through which Thomas allowed himself to admire the raw beauty that made Jimmy practically glow. The fairy lights strung through the heavy air made Jimmy seem like he was suspended in a sea of stars, made only more real to Thomas by the buoyancy of his own spirit, which floated celestially in the room with an alien freedom. Like he’d been released from a cage forged of his own invisible troubles – like he’d been given to himself for the first time in his life. He leaned in to kiss Jimmy with the sort of satiated greed that meets a starving man when he first discovers water. 

_Now everybody knows you're from outer space – outer space!  
_ _But honey, I’m just tryin’ to turn out this space with you._

They grappled with each other, turning over and over on the tiny bed to disrupt the neatness of the blankets. Hands and fingers fumbled over skin, through locks of hair and underneath what little clothing remained between them. Heat replaced the cool damp that pervaded the house, a thin film of perspiration gleaming upon their cheeks and shoulders. Thomas could feel a trickle of sweat rolling down his spine to dip teasingly beneath his drawers, and he groaned, needing it desperately to be Jimmy who touched him there.

“A rubber,” Thomas gasped when his wish was fulfilled by Jimmy’s roving fingertips. “Tell me you’ve a rubber in here.”

Jimmy, who seemed to know exactly what sort of trouble he was causing for Thomas, sniggered and merely laid back in the sheets. “The bedside table,” he directed Thomas lazily, clearly more interested in looking wanton than being of any real use. His touch ghosted across the planes of Thomas’s body as Thomas shuffled over him, making Thomas’s quest much more difficult than it need be.

Another laugh befell Jimmy as Thomas finally reached for the drawer’s pull. Thomas nearly collapsed off the side of the bed as Jimmy rolled out from beneath him, removing himself from a position that was akin to a building’s keystone. Innocently, Jimmy sat closer to the foot of the bed to kick himself out of his chino shorts. Thomas eyed him from beneath hooded eyelids as he blindly plunged into the drawer, shivering at the sight of Jimmy’s toned thighs as he rolled his shorts over each bony patella. Every glimpse of Jimmy was like a drug-addled hit: the revelation of Jimmy’s little boxer shorts – patterned with round bumblebees and dotted trails that led into dangerous territory – left Thomas stoned with desire. He bruised his knuckles on the underside of the tabletop with swimming senses.

Then Jimmy rolled onto his back, intersecting the mattress sideways and curling his big feet over the edge as he waited for Thomas to come back to him. Thomas forced his concentration back to rummaging through the bedside table, though the impression of Jimmy lying there – lying there, _waiting for him_ – refused to abate. No one had ever looked at Thomas quite like _that_ before – of that much, Thomas was certain.

Inside the drawer, Thomas found Jimmy’s toiletry bag, the very same one which he had snooped through when they’d stopped over in Wales. Its contents had been flung haphazardly into the drawer, overflowing with hair and personal care products that only served as obstacles as Thomas hunted for the streamer of condoms he remembered stuffing to the bottom of the little satchel in embarrassment all those days ago. It shocked Thomas how that particular memory, so close to the start of his adventure with Jimmy, seemed both so immediate and forever ago at once.

Thomas’s hand closed around another random object inside the drawer, at once surprised at its accidental discovery when he recognized the nature of its particular shape. At once present in his search, he peered down the length of his forearm to confirm what he thought he’d just found. There in his fist, inches from the much sought-after condoms and a tube of lubricant, was a phallic toy wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag. He clutched at the lot, revealing his discovery to Jimmy with an arched eyebrow. 

_So drive me to that galaxy where I could play – that milky way –_  
_And sugar, I’ll take my time and show you the backseat view  
_ _If it’s cool, cool._

With the athleticism of a skater, Jimmy swooshed into a crawl and inched towards Thomas with a deepening of the smirk on his face. He made a rather sensual lunge for the toy, but Thomas was too quick for him, suddenly shot full of a playfulness of his own. “Ahh,” he drawled with a lifted lip; “Seems like a big boy grew up in here after all.”

“A very big boy,” Jimmy insisted as he fell headfirst into Thomas’s lap, somehow managing to be graceful even in such ungainliness. His bottom in the air, Jimmy glanced up at Thomas flirtatiously – as if he was well aware of what the juxtaposition of his cute drawers and his chiseled musculature did to Thomas.

But Thomas had been reignited with a burst of his typical confidence, realizing that he was in a position to tease Jimmy back with just as much indiscrimination. He dropped the bundle he’d removed from the drawer so that he could attend to Jimmy with both his hands. He slid his palms over the contours of Jimmy’s back, appreciating how beautifully pliant Jimmy became at his feather-light touch. As Thomas sunk into the pillows stacked at the head of the bed, he manipulated Jimmy until the blond was poised near enough for Thomas to grace his belly with more kisses. Jimmy practically buzzed with glee, especially when Thomas ran a hand so far up Jimmy’s leg, it vanished beneath the hem of his bumblebee shorts.

_And I love it when I hear you say –_

Jimmy was caught somewhere between a laugh and a moan. He clawed Thomas’s bare shoulders, nails dug into fair skin that gleamed pale between Jimmy’s reddened knuckles. He was tense with anticipation as Thomas grazed the silken flesh at the apex of his thigh, and then nearly delirious with need as Thomas expertly began to massage his most sensitive parts. The cotton flap of Jimmy’s shorts was damp and distorted with the growing shape of his own need; Thomas clamped his arm around Jimmy’s hips to control his squirming and then let his kisses sink beneath the borderline of Jimmy’s waistband.

_Ooooh, ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh._

Simultaneously, Thomas groped Jimmy from below, while lavishing kisses upon the hardened organ that was only half enshrouded in cotton. He pinched one of the bumblebees printed over Jimmy’s left buttock, and shifted the angle of his lips so that he could nibble at some of the other little insects adorning Jimmy’s underwear. His teeth caught in the fabric and elicited a muted gasp from Jimmy with each possessive mark he left in his wake. The hand that wasn’t engaged in places unseen began to wander down Jimmy’s backside, curiously dipping underneath the bumblebee guise to tease the sensitive crease in Jimmy’s anatomy.

“Tell me to stop,” Thomas murmured against the exposed flesh of Jimmy’s cock, though the tremble of his words against the delicate flesh only made Jimmy pant harder. Even before Jimmy desperately moaned in protest at the suggestion, Thomas had removed his hand from Jimmy’s arse to fumble for the lube he’d dropped at his side. He only needed an excuse to keep himself from going too far – and even less of one to succumb to his most erotic whims. He gave Jimmy one last chance: “Please, baby boy – tell me to stop.”

Jimmy only relocated his hands from Thomas’s shoulders to the back of his head, pressing his kisses more prominently between his legs. Fingers tangled in Thomas’s raven black hair, tugging urgently.

There was a certain degree of awkwardness as Thomas tried to hold Jimmy captive and simultaneously pop the cap off the squashed tube of lubricant with his free hand. Somehow, he managed it even with Jimmy’s heady scent clouding his senses, the addicting flavor of his sweat, his need – his everything. Thomas jerked roughly at Jimmy’s boxers until they were twisted around his thighs and his erection was free of its confines. Thomas was too keen to even consider pausing before he consumed the head of it, suckling it lovingly before drawing the rest of it into his mouth. It had been so long since Thomas had wanted to pleasure someone so completely, and he was teetering on the edge of control.

With a freshly slicked pair of fingers, Thomas returned to touching Jimmy from behind. He prodded gently, loving the whimpers Jimmy made in the thrall of such intimate teasing. Thomas, meanwhile, had grown fraught with ways to drive Jimmy even more wild, the clanking gears in his head already stalled on the electric toy that had been stashed with Jimmy’s other personal items. Though he was unable to keep himself from bestowing attention upon Jimmy’s engorged cock, he groped the blankets for the toy, wresting it blindly from its plastic wrap. He was delighted to find it vibrating readily in his lubed hand once he had done so. 

_I’m going to fly you to the moon,  
_ _And make you say –_

Experimentally, Thomas replaced his probing fingers with his newfound plaything, nearly choking on Jimmy’s dick when he heard Jimmy let out a series of little mewls. The luscious sounds Jimmy made only intensified as Thomas grew more bold, giving Jimmy enough of it to make the blond thrust further down Thomas’s throat. Thomas repeated the action, increasingly satisfied with how Jimmy melted just a bit more with each round. His ministrations were slow and deliberate, but he soon had to devolve his adoration of Jimmy’s cock to licks and wet kisses as Jimmy grew more overwhelmed by the sensation of being fucked in such a way. Against Jimmy’s hipbone, Thomas rasped heavily, “Buzz for me, bumblebee – like that, my little bumblebee.”

Jimmy threw his head back and purred at the ceiling.

For his own part, Thomas could feel himself becoming agitated with the underwear that still clung to his own body. As he relaxed his hold on Jimmy enough to see to his own needs, Jimmy groaned at the disruption in service. Gasping, he jerked Thomas’s head backwards by a fistful of hair, though whatever he had been about to say was cleared away when he caught sight of Thomas wriggling out of his drawers – and the beautiful sight that was revealed in the process. “Oh, Thomas,” Jimmy breathed as he stared down at Thomas’s erection. He leaned over so that he could gather Thomas against his stomach, as if holding Thomas close would steady his unyielding lust: “Thomas, when do I get to have _you_?” he raggedly begged.

The request barely had to be made for Thomas to cast the sex toy aside without a second thought. It rolled over the edge of the bed, instantly forgotten, while Thomas searched frantically for the lubricant and condoms. Messing about had been well and good, but Thomas was through with playtime – especially when Jimmy was panting for him so desperately, ready to burst in a dazzling supernova of passion. He gave Jimmy a shove, sending the blond sprawling onto his back in a mess of boyhood blankets and crumpled clothing, and then shuffled onto his knees. Hair hopelessly mussed, Jimmy looked up at him with darkened bedroom eyes, lips parted slightly as he whispered voiceless entreaties for Thomas to make love to him. It was then that Thomas had to stop and admire the unbelievable gift on offer.

 _He’s all mine_ , was the first thing to flash through Thomas’s brain as he surveyed Jimmy’s beautiful nudity, interrupted only by the bumblebee boxers that were still caught around his legs. With surprisingly nervous hands, Thomas reached out to finish rolling the garment over Jimmy’s largish feet. Pleased by their shared nakedness, Thomas held himself over Jimmy while he rolled the condom over his weeping erection, oiling it up with the lube as he leaned in to give Jimmy the first taste of what adoration he had in store. Despite any experience Jimmy might have been bragging about, Thomas knew he still had a few things to show Jimmy about love. 

_Baby, this is the part  
_ _Where you and me and all the stars collide tonight…._

They were engaged in a rather hungry kiss when Thomas first gave himself to Jimmy. In accordance to the mood music that still swung through the atmosphere, Thomas began with a rhythmic pace that made Jimmy stutter with pleasure against his lips. He knew exactly when to go fast, hard and ardently, and when to take it slow, mapping his tempo with each rising crescendo in Jimmy – his every sigh and arch, the tightness with which his legs were coiled around Thomas’s middle and the nails that clawed at his shoulder blades. Thomas showered kisses along Jimmy’s square jaw, over the trembling pulse that ran through his jugular, collarbone and all. He wanted to worship Jimmy, and only prayed his attention was praise enough. 

Jimmy came before Thomas, grunting animalistically as his pleasure spilled over his belly in a hot, sticky surge. Watching Jimmy find release did something to Thomas, tripling the untold heights that he’d already climbed to in the throes of their lovemaking: the piston of his hips increased to a wild abandon with no rhyme or regulation, unable to control those final moments of fucking Jimmy before his own gratification similarly flowered. He was fully seated within his lover when it happened, and in the aftermath, Thomas could barely find the stamina to pull out, and instead collapsed into Jimmy’s waiting arms to regain his breath – and his wits.

_Where we take off  
_ _And then we fly far away, far away, far away…._

It was hard to know how long they laid there in each other’s embrace, even when the cassette tape reached its end and clicked to silence. Thomas was too busy reliving the salt of Jimmy’s skin, while Jimmy artfully combed his fingers through Thomas’s dark hair over and over. There was no need to speak, their mere closeness a more than ample form of communication. Still hesitant to believe any of it was real, Thomas thought he might truly die there in Jimmy’s arms – if he wasn’t dead already. Moving seemed like an impossibility to him, as though even the slightest shift in their arrangement would wake him from the most wonderful dream he’d ever dared to have.

After a time, Jimmy interrupted the peaceful air. Making a bit of a fuss beneath the weight of Thomas’s body, he tried to wrangle himself into an upright position, announcing, “Give over, love. I ought to check up on Pancake.”

If Thomas hadn’t been so consumed by the use of that particular epithet, he might have thought more deeply about Pancake’s suddenly noticeable absence. He wondered if the dog had somehow come to change his mind about Thomas, or if Jimmy had such a connection with his pet, he’d managed to communicate the way of things much better than Thomas ever could. Briefly, he imagined Jimmy engaged in the so-called conversation he claimed to have had with Pancake earlier in the day, though what he pictured was more along the lines of Jimmy talking to himself in Pancake’s general presence. Which made Jimmy seem so lonely in the world, Thomas couldn’t help but hug him tighter, even as the blond made every effort to get up.

Though Jimmy yelped at the unexplained increase in affection, he still hugged Thomas back – a gesture that somehow seemed even more intimate than even their lovemaking.

Inevitably, Thomas had to release Jimmy. He felt like he was falling backwards through the sky to let him go, plummeting fast like Icarus in a cascade of molten wax and feathers. The sensation literally made his stomach drop, and it was only the vague indication of Jimmy’s baritone that called him back to reality.

“Why don’t you go clean yourself up?” Jimmy suggested as he used Thomas’s shirt to wipe himself off. “Take a shower, ey? I’ll join you in a moment.”

It took Thomas a few moments to process what Jimmy had said, his attention far more occupied by the fact that Jimmy was heading off to see about Pancake as naked as the day he was born. He certainly hoped Sybil wasn’t home yet – though he doubted Jimmy would be arsed if she was. The idea made him smug, a little thrilled by the notion of such cheekiness in Jimmy. He liked that bit about Jimmy very, very much.

Heading to the small bathroom next to Jimmy’s room, Thomas didn’t realize how much he’d been craving a shower until he’d turned the water on. He waited for it to heat up and then doused himself beneath the spray, dawdling in the steamy space long enough to recall the amazing experience he’d just shared with Jimmy. But after he’d gone through the process of washing his hair, soaping up and rinsing off, he realized that he was still by himself. Instinctively, he clutched at his cross, wondering what was taking Jimmy so long.

 _Maybe Sybil really is back_ , Thomas thought as he turned the tap off and stepped out onto the little bath rug. He entertained his previous notion of Jimmy standing proud and bare-arsed in the front parlor, hands on hips as he bluntly informed Sibyl what they’d been up to while she’d been out. _Sybil’d be pleased to know it at last_ , Thomas continued to tell himself, which was actually rather calming. He reached for a towel, easily able to decide which one belonged to Jimmy: it was covered in turtles.

He went back to Jimmy’s room to get a fresh change of clothing from his case, though he only bothered to pull on socks, underwear and another set of trousers. Considering Jimmy’s current state, Thomas was practically ready to attend a wedding as he was. He went downstairs to find Jimmy.

However, the moment his foot hit the ground floor, he should have known something was strange. He found Jimmy with Pancake, standing in front of the television and staring at it as if he’d forgotten how ridiculous it looked for a naked man to be so entranced by a screen. It wasn’t until he registered what exactly Jimmy was watching that he understood why.

It was the news, which had clearly followed up the film Jimmy had been enjoying before. The current story was one that made Thomas’s gut churn, for it was focused on none other than his crime of vengeance against his father’s cruelty. It was being heralded as a vicious and unsolved attack that had left the victim in critical condition, unconscious and unresponsive as of yet. On the bright side, at least Thomas had learned that he wasn’t a killer; on the down, the Manchester police department was actively trying to track Thomas down. They politely referred to him as ‘missing,’ but it was obvious why the coppers were interested in Thomas’s whereabouts, with or without his father’s input on the subject.

Jimmy whirled on Thomas, his face puffy like he might have been crying. “What the actual _fuck_ , Thomas?” he demanded.

Thomas’s world went black.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy's Caliente mix definitely features none other than my boy JT. A nonstop Justin dance party in the last week has not only got Jimmy laid, but also some exercise for the lazy sack of shit who writes this story hehe. Hopefully you won't have to sit on this last cliffhanger too long. 
> 
> But the end is in sight!


	14. Strawberry Fields

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas pieces together what occurred in the wake of Jimmy's discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pulled another all-nighter for this one because my life is insane right now. Hopefully this unedited mess isn't complete garbage. Chapter title belongs to the Beatles. Like I could resist them forever :P

 

Funny, he’d never noticed that the world was forged out of amber. Layer upon layer of gaslight folded and hammered into a crystalline form gave everything around him a sort of golden glow, like it was only ever dawn for ages and ages. Or perhaps it was the world clutched in the stillness of a photograph – an antiquated one that only bore black and sepia, and held him in the eternal throes of a single moment. An inescapable morning through which he lingered, frozen on a chemicalized plane that threatened to blow out into nothingness beneath the bright sun. Here, he was with the only pulse for miles and miles, though he appeared missing and unsure of how to rescue himself. All he had to do for hours was wait, so wait he did, but for what, he was also unsure.

Distantly, he thought he could hear voices calling out a name. Was it his? What _was_ his name, he wondered abstractly, taking time to consider that perhaps the voices were interested in someone else. _That’s alright_ , he decided hazily; _Nothin’ could be that important._

“Thomas? Thomas!”

The name again, and then a shiver that rocked his shoulders and jolted down his spine. He smiled dreamily to himself, as if influenced by a pleasant sleep. It was so relaxing to lay down at last, to have a still and quiet brain that no longer took such great measures at self-sabotage. Was this what it was to be peaceful?

“Thomas,” came a lower, raspier voice, like it hung in the predawn with him. “Thomas, please don’t go. Please.”

Drifting in the vague direction of the new voice, he squinted up at the coppery skyscape, instinctually taking a step towards it without any volition. It was like he’d been tugged by an unseen thread he’d lost cognizance of, but now was so wholly aware of, he couldn’t believe he’d ever lost track of its tightness around his heart. The shroud of uncertainty that had wrapped him slipped as he searched the clouds for the other end of the thin strand. Perhaps he’d find a kite flown so high, it had become a mere speck upon the heavens, or perhaps a lifeline to another world entirely.

He took another step closer.

 _Maybe this is my callin’ to the end_ , Thomas mused, strangely accepting of such a possibility. He took one more step across the unreal rushes beneath his bare toes. _Time brings us all here, I s’pose. Sooner or later._

“Thomas?” The voice was growing frantic, and was ever so much fainter than before.

Who was Thomas, he wondered. And who wanted him so desperately? He looked up along the kite string that extended up from his forearm, noting for the first time that the amber glow had sprinkled little flecks along its translucent length. The line was pulling him along, he noticed as he took another few paces forward. His feet were barely grazing the reeds beneath him anymore, his every step more buoyant than the last. The wind licked his heels and tussled his hair as he rose above the silent earth.

And what was this feeling? It was on the tip of his tongue.

“Thomas, come back. I’m still here, ey?” the voice entreated with a familiarity he had missed before. It seemed he was growing closer to it the higher he climbed into the sky, and with that proximity, an understanding he had apparently forgotten to forget when he first came to this golden field of Elysium.

“I were just shocked is all – same as you,” the voice went on, now babbling with the comforting rhythm of running water, or perhaps lilting music. “We’ve lived through worse, ey? We’ll solve it… somehow. Just don’t… please don’t….”

A tightening constricted him in his chest and his lungs – around the whole of his torso and even firmly about the muscle of his heart. It was strangely comforting despite the fact that its onset nearly made him lose his balance on his lofty perch. Perhaps his fate was to be one final fall, which he found, with grim satisfaction, quite fitting. He climbed onwards, up towards the sun that would ultimately reject him for the last time. The sky grew hungry with rumbling images that flashed across the celestial orb like a monochrome storm had had begun to brew out of excitable anticipation for his death. Faces he knew from some other time, some other place, drifted in and out of the clouds, and made his heart tremble curiously. He wondered if they had come to watch him expire.

“It’d be a bastard thing for you to run away now,” the same deep voice insisted as a powerful drumbeat rocketed through his core, like something had been thrown against him with enough power to make him sputter. There was a pause, and then a sharp intake of breath: “How dare you make me feel this way. You wicked, wicked _cockmunch_.”  

There seemed to be some sort of additional commotion in the heavens. The deep voice was reduced to rainy mumbling, while a chorus of softer, more genteel tones transfigured the lightning from a wild crackle to more ambient patterns of light against the sky.

 _I’ll see you in an hour or two or whenever,_ he thought inconsequentially, hoping it would make that unbearable heartbreak abate. _You’ll be the first to hear when I do._

Instead, the golden air shimmered with a thin drizzle that began to leak from thickened clouds. Pausing in his ascent, Thomas narrowed his eyes into the burgeoning rain, little droplets accenting his dark lashes in the changing weather, until the loss in his momentum made him falter. Through the soft hiss of falling water, he thought he heard that same, lovely voice calling him like a beacon in the yellowing mist.

A hot golden ray of sun was starting to burn his vision as he rose up through the thick atmosphere, nearly making him blind. The string bobbing on his wrist jerked urgently, its loop slicing into thin skin. The clouds were starting to look like nothing, and gave way to a hot, white luminosity that overwhelmed his sight. He wondered, _What sort of weather is this now?_

A duplicity in imagery patterned itself across his eyes, moving overhead like drifting spirits against a ceiling. He wondered if perhaps the string that was tugging him upwards was lassoed around such a being. _Maybe heaven isn’t so far away as all that_ , he thought drolly, like he was stepping over the threshold of something that didn’t warrant so much fear. Fresh air cleansed his nostrils with a calming breath, settling his conscience. _Or maybe I’ll hit the roof and slam right back down to where I belong_ ….

He’d no sooner come to peace with this strange walk into nothingness, when the dreamlike buoyancy of the experience suddenly shifted into something much more visceral. His body heaved, as though he’d been snatched right out of the sky and dragged somewhere else entirely. Strings and clouds and things slid around him as he was pulled into a pair of strong, familiar arms. The cloying scent of dog and hair gel flavored gasping breaths. He peeled his eyelids apart with a deep inhalation, realizing for the first time that they’d been glued shut all this time.

 _Time… time_ , he wondered abstractly as he inhaled that reassuring scent, and a tartan pattern began to bleed in and out of his focus. _What time is it?_

Then the deep voice that had been guiding him along the length of imaginary string rumbled all around him, clarifying that he was being held by its owner. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Thomas,” said the voice. Arms tightened protectively about his shoulders, pressing him into the tartan-checkered aroma.

Glancing upwards found the underside of Jimmy’s strong jaw, which was outlined in the hazy glow of a nearby lamp. Ochre light splashed the walls and leaked over the sofa, against which Jimmy had balled himself around Thomas’s awakened form. More voices softly made themselves known, wafting from either side of Jimmy’s crouched person. Dimly, Thomas recognized Sybil sitting immediately to Jimmy’s left, sloshing tea over the rim of a blue mug as she suddenly leaned into Thomas’s range of vision. “Oh thank goodness, he’s come to,” she sighed.

“Gosh, I was getting worried. It’s been nearly a half hour,” came another female voice from Jimmy’s other side. Unable to place it, Thomas wriggled enough to see who she was. A blond with cherry cheeks sat close enough to an ebony-skinned man to suggest a particular friendliness between them. Thomas didn’t know either one, and so assumed they were attached to Sybil – which only served to remind Thomas that he was barely more than a lost boy stuck in a fantasy land.

Before Thomas really had a moment to process what was happening, the tartan folds scrunched over his nose were replaced with a rush of atmospheric orange and cream; a glass of water was pressed into one of his hands by one of the others, though he couldn’t have told who had done. Heartbeats resounded through his skull, replacing the empty hole that had been bleeding in his drifting subconscious.

“Drink up, buddy,” the other stranger on the couch directed him. He had a distinctively urban American accent, though Thomas had no clue exactly which region of the country it hailed from.

Mechanically, Thomas sipped at the cool beverage, which dripped down a throat so parched, he hadn’t even realized it needed wetting. He gagged: “What happened?”

“You were passed out cold, man,” explained the African American, whose name Thomas still didn’t know. “We all just walked in the door to find your boy there, barely dressed and actin’ like that monster dog droolin’ into your hair was gonna to help.”

“Wow, thanks a lot, Jack. Barely known us five minutes and already sellin’ me out, is it?” Jimmy protested, clearly less than amused. He was clutching Pancake like a giant plush toy, replicating the way he had bent Thomas against his other shoulder. Back in his flannel and his bumblebee boxers, Jimmy was more clothed than Thomas remembered him – a candy-coated recollection that seemed quite distant right then – but also far less cross than he expected, especially as his memory began to solidify. Touching his fringe, which was stiff with dog slobber, Thomas wondered if he was to wait in this purgatory until they were alone again – if that was when Jimmy would tell him how horrified he was by Thomas’s secret scandal.

Overwhelmed, Thomas squeezed his eyes close once more, attempting to shut the complexity of it all out. He groaned, and wished he was anywhere else. He tried to recreate the misty gardens that grew up on the edge of his mind.  

Except Jimmy’s aura was warm, and his arm was wrapped around ever so protectively. Thomas settled for burying his nose into the crook of Jimmy’s neck, very nearly fumbling the cup of water in hand as he mumbled, “I s’pose they’ll have also seen.”

“Seen?” The flagrant innocence in Jimmy’s question made Thomas’s insides freeze. “What’s to see?”

For a series of horrifying moments, all of which stacked upon one another with increasing duress, Thomas stressed over his response. He lifted the water back to his chapped lips, though there was barely anything left inside the glass, and hunted for just the right line to say. Instead, all he found was a stack of large dress boxes and an array of shopping bags littering the ugly carpet just within his line of sight. Hiding behind the riot of packaging was his cricket bat, which loitered innocuously against the wall, just where he’d left it a hundred years prior. Its cherry red lacquer gleamed in the soft lamplight that painted the room, shifting across a spectrum of pale hues every time a car’s headlamps glimmered through the thin curtains.

Jack, however, was armed with a quick answer, eating up the perceived eternity Thomas had tried to shrink into Jimmy’s shirt. “Got a real look at your boyfriend’s pink ass when we came through the door, that’s what!” Jack chuckled at Thomas, diffusing the crackling fuse winding through his ribcage – only to light another.

“Leave them alone,” his female companion admonished, though Jack only continued to be amused, and added with another laugh: “Oh, don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy the view, Rose.”

“S’cuse me. I weren’t exactly plannin’ my afternoon out round you lot!” Jimmy yelped, huddling both Thomas and Pancake towards his middle like he was afraid they’d be taken from him. For the first time, Thomas didn’t mind being pushed into Pancake’s vicinity, and even felt a newborn kinship with the animal that had never been there before. Pancake’s tongue flapped beneath Jimmy’s chin to lap at Thomas’s cheek.

“That’s obvious,” commented Jack.

“Lucky we turned up when we did, though,” Sybil interjected with her usual diplomacy when she sensed the increase in tension. “The way you were carrying on, I was scared what we’d find. You were near hysterics, Jimmy.”  

Indignantly, Jimmy huffed up at her, “I don’t get _hysterical_ , right?”

His voice floated above Thomas’s slovenly hair, but he heard it as a rumble beneath Jimmy’s sternum. It was hard for him to picture Jimmy being anything but a perfectly controlled storm, his messiness all packaged carefully behind a well-trimmed forelock and a mouthful of bubblegum. Perhaps out of habit, Thomas had already assigned his taste in Jimmy as one resigned to only beautiful, vain creatures, and had difficulty making anything else out of it. He’d never been visible to anyone before.

“Oh, right. Says the one holding his man and his dog like they’re about to be taken away,” Sybil replied candidly, her gaze fluttering over the rim of her tea mug. Her tone was powerful, like she was finally getting a chance to say something she’d grown tired of keeping under her tongue. “Did you glaze over the way we found you? Too busy slapping cheeks and shouting the same things again and again to put on some drawers and consult your bloody phone on the correct methodology, if I recall.”

“I was overwhelmed,” Jimmy snapped with a spike in nastiness, though his tone also came with another squeeze around Thomas’s person. In all, it made Thomas feel quite like a child, but he was unperturbed by the observation; Jimmy’s embrace had made him bulletproof.

Pancake woofed.

Not about to let her cousin get railroaded by a stranger, Rose clamored up on Sybil’s behalf. “He might have woke sooner if you’d just let him get some oxygen,” she suggested with a tactfulness that bore a large resemblance to Sybil’s general demeanor. “And _you_ might have felt better if you’d taken the time to regroup and have a proper think.”

At once, Thomas got the impression Rose and Sybil had been bosom buddies since they’d been girls, and had grown up sharing the same mind. Considering that Jack was sort of fellow Rose seemed to be spectacularly keen on, it only cemented for Thomas that Tom and Sybil would get on famously. A curiosity grew about the one phone chat he knew Sybil had shared with his own boyhood mate, and then wondered if they’d spoken since. An odd little part of him sort of hoped they had.

“Well, your input was greatly _appreciated_ ,” Jimmy said tersely. His breath was hot upon Thomas’s forehead, rearranging his hair into even more hopeless a disarray; his stomach trembled beneath Thomas’s palm, which was contoured to Jimmy’s crunched abdomen. The pride that lacerated the air crumbled, and Jimmy finally gave an inch. “I were just afraid, alright?” he admitted, albeit with a bit of trouble. “It’s been an eventful day.”

“It certainly seems that way,” Sybil agreed with a knowing smirk, like she had one last tidbit that she was saving from polite conversation. In a ladylike effort to shift the topic, she retooled her focus onto Thomas, and inquired after his health.

Lost somewhere in his uncharted navigation of a matchmaker fantasy circulating around Tom and Sybil, Thomas was slow to react to Sybil’s question. In fact, almost all of the conversation had faded into dull white noise that was completely indistinguishable when put up against the tangible emotion that lying against Jimmy’s body instilled. He struggled to tear himself apart, peeling himself away from Jimmy as if doing so gave him pain. He was immediately revisited by anxious palpitations the moment Jimmy’s arm fell loose.

Concerning Thomas’s lethargy and sallow appearance, Jack tutted, “You know, coolin’ your heels for a hot minute might not be the worst idea, man. You obviously went in way too tough today.”

“It’s nothing,” Thomas insisted as he watched Jimmy wrap both arms very decisively around Pancake. Any hint of freshly-made peace between Thomas and Pancake was instantly replaced with old jealousies. A shiver touched Thomas’s skin despite the stuffiness of the room.

“Didn’t look like nothing,” Rose hummed, quite unconvinced.

“Didn’t feel like nothin’, neither,” Jimmy muttered into Pancake’s fur. Only Thomas heard him. Still, it was enough to send his wicked brain into another whirl of uncertainty.

Sybil, meanwhile, was anything but fooled: “How daft do you think I am?” she demanded, setting her mug onto the side table with a very commanding thump. “All that cocksure bravado doesn’t fool me! Do you really have to keep on with the cool act?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean!” Jimmy countered, this time lifting his chin enough so that he could spit the words over Pancake’s drooping ears. It was strange how a person could be both so outwardly expressive and, at the same time, frustratingly reticent, but Jimmy Kent somehow managed the feat like it was a natural state of being.

Through all this, Thomas had begun a surreptitious exodus across the rug, towards his cricket bat, desperate for his more practiced rituals of calm. However, as he progressed backwards in tiny, seated increments, he instinctively reached for his neck to pull at his chained cross, and was horrified to find his fingernails jabbing at empty skin. He halted halfway through Rose and Sybil’s sea of stylish consumerism: “Where is it?” he flared up, abruptly drawing an unwanted level of attention to himself as he clawed at his neck amid the shopping bags; “Which one of you has it?”

It was beginning to become more than he could take. Most likely, Rose and Jack would leave under the impression that he was a certifiable lunatic, whilst Jimmy and Sybil would inevitably whisper about how to pass him off to the authorities without looking like accomplices to such madness. No doubt it was the first thing on all of their minds now that his embarrassing overreaction to Jimmy’s discovery had been capped off.

The others stared at him wordlessly. In an instant, Thomas gave up, a sob away from frustrated tears as he fell backwards onto the carpet. Arms spread akimbo and legs nailed together at the ankle, he stared up at the ceiling and tried to drag the strata of his imagination back over it. _Just take me back, please, please_ , he begged his subconscious, hoping to be stuffed back through copper clouds until he was sailing kites in soft, unreal grass once more.

He squeezed his eyes shut, chewing the inside of one cheek as if it would help fulfill his wish for relief. He wasn’t sure what it meant when the universe handed it to him in the form of a wet nose and warm fur.

\--

Despite his earlier misgivings that he was an unsalvageable wreck, Sybil and Rose defied the story Thomas had told himself by strong-arming him up to Jimmy’s room for an early night in. While he appreciated their effort to make sure he recovered from his fainting spell efficiently, it was hard to get any rest while he laid in the dark, alone, and the rise and fall of merry chatter continued to sneak under the door with the sliver of illumination from the hallway outside. Sometimes, laughter would punctuate the sound like a bottle being shattered over his skull, raining down dangerous little shards that punctured his skin until he bled. 

He had no idea how long he laid there, listening, but the stomp of feet on the stairs quickly punched him full of trepidation. He’d learned the pattern of Jimmy’s sure gait very early on – heralded, as always, by the patter of big paws – but it made him nervous when he tried to anticipate his direction. How desperately he wanted – _needed_ – Jimmy to come back to him, and yet, how terrified he was of the unknowing. How he loathed the _waiting._ The rest of the night might find anything from dead embers to sunlit glory, but only time would tell – measured out by each decided step Jimmy took. 

An end to the countdown came when a sudden cone of rosy light leaked into the room behind Jimmy’s appearance in the doorway. Wordlessly, Thomas sat up in the narrow bed, staring through the gloom like he was trying to ascertain the best way into Jimmy’s mysterious heart. Pancake’s bounding arrival and the continued interaction of Sybil and the others barely registered with Thomas, whose entire world had flung itself into orbit around Jimmy’s celestial being. As Jimmy also entered the room and softly swung the door closed behind him, Thomas swallowed in the blue midnight. 

Silence continued as Jimmy moved around the bed to climb in next to Thomas. Together, they both laid down side-by-side, barely able to fit on the small mattress with their shoulders and elbows bumping against one another. It was very reminiscent of the first time they’d shared a bed on the road, except for the fact that Pancake wasn’t wedged between them, and the racing thrum in his veins had a far different inspiration than it had back then. 

“I got tired of pretendin’,” Jimmy eventually announced, though it took him a bit to get around to it. Outlined in the indigo shadows, he kept his nose pointed upwards as he clarified: “Y’know, like I belonged down there with Sybil and them.” 

“Oh,” Thomas eked out, also trained up at the ceiling. He was afraid to say much else lest they wound up turning some unprecedented corner. They fell to another pregnant quiet through which Thomas tried to read the upside-down words on the poster directly above the headboard. 

 _Blood Sugar Sex Magik._  

A desperation to know whether Jimmy had climbed the stairs to escape a social situation, or if he had other, more personal reasons for wanting to be there. It would be a cruel thing for Jimmy to turn over and rescind every intimate gesture they’d shared that afternoon, but Thomas was foolish enough to let himself remain vulnerable to such a possibility. His whole life had always been fire, but this time, the prayer of salvation was enough to make Thomas hope – even if he was probably going about everything all wrong. 

A thousand things could have exploded from Jimmy next: anger at being lied to, disgust at Thomas’s crime, animalistic desires or even plain denial – but not the passionate confession Jimmy told the darkness. “It were me,” he admitted so quickly, he was almost indecipherable; “It were me who took your cross before.” 

 _Blood Sugar –_  

Thomas was halfway through his countless reading of the poster when Jimmy spoke. The whites of his eyes were slivered with moonlight when he shifted his head on the pillow to look over at Jimmy, confused. 

“When you fell. I grabbed it when I were tryin’ to wake you, and I broke the chain,” Jimmy elaborated, still addressing something overhead; “An’ I figured you’d not be too pleased about it, so I hid it in here when Sybil made me get dressed.” Then his gaze was suddenly on Thomas, eyes glimmering like twin stars in the night: “It’s in the drawer, there – with all me loose change. You can be angry with me. Me guilty conscience certainly deserves the lashin’.” 

Thomas blinked at Jimmy in awe, so surprised to hear such a comparatively trite grievance from Jimmy that he actually started to laugh. It was one of the heartiest bouts of amusement Thomas had experienced in a long while, beginning deep in his belly and undulating through him until he wheezed. He had to wipe his watery eyes before he could even attempt to look at Jimmy again, though the petulantly disquieted expression Jimmy wore in the darkness only made Thomas want to laugh all over again. 

“What’s funny?” Not even the cover of night could hide the creases in Jimmy’s face. His tone was deadly serious. 

Thomas attempted to school his mirth, though it was rather difficult. “It’s just – with all this shit….” Thomas began, though he had to break off in order to fight off the hilarity he found in such cosmic irony. ”You’ve found out in the absolute worst way about me biggest secret, which I ought to have just told you from the outset, and the thing you’re worried about is a _trinket_?” 

Old mattress springs whined as Jimmy shuffled onto his side, rearranging the shadows around him as he did so. “Then I s’pose it’ll make us even,” Jimmy insisted across the rubber ducky pillow they shared. 

Unable to ignore the very obvious discrepancy in their discussion, Thomas flipped onto his side so that he could meet Jimmy’s catlike eyes more directly. “I thought you were completely disturbed by what I’ve done,” Thomas stated with a knit brow; “You yelled at me.” 

Thomas flinched, anticipating some sort of negative response from Jimmy now that he’d been reminded of what a terrible human Thomas was. But instead of vitriol, Thomas heard an answer he probably should have expected: “Sybil explained the whole thing to me,” Jimmy glibly informed him. He wriggled towards Thomas, reaching out for him. “And if this whole thing goes tits up, I swear I’ll come out swingin’ for you, Thomas. I’m in your corner and all.”

Thomas had never been more astonished in his life, though inexperience with being treated like a whole person probably lent itself to that. His own hands searched for Jimmy in the dark, pleased to find a steady heartbeat beneath his touch – a vital reminder that Jimmy was real. Still, he couldn’t help but ask _why_. 

But Jimmy’s logic simple: “Isn’t that what it means to love someone?”

On the floor, Pancake wrestled with one of his toys, which was largely more interesting to him than the fact that Thomas had leaned in to kiss his master on the mouth – or that such attention was being happily reciprocated. There were priorities, after all. 

And a certain amount of magic in the world.

 


	15. Lost Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sybil's purpose in London becomes clear; Thomas has a chat with Tom over the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry it took me forever to get this posted. My life is really crazy right now -- and that damn hurricane sure didn't help me! (So basically I had two vacations right on top of one another, haha.) Hopefully adding Battlefield to my litany of things to do won't affect future chapters... too much. 
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy! And let me know if I haven't completely flubbed the whole thing up.

 

The patter of kisses that rained down upon Thomas might have been part of another strange, lucid dream found in the early morning. It was too pleasant to be real, and yet as sunlight climbing up into bed with him, settling on the pillow in streaks that made him squint with bleary half-awareness, the soft touches were still impressing themselves along the contours of his back. They left warm prints in their wake that remained even when Thomas had fully returned to wakefulness, a reminder of something sweet that had visited him outside of his imagination. Even when he rolled over and shoved himself up onto crooked elbows, finding himself quite alone in Jimmy’s tiny bed, there a strangely comforted smile fixed dumbly on his face. It was as though he’d opened his eyes to discover himself in a place so very different than the one he’d occupied before.

A cacophony of laughter issued from elsewhere in the house – another virgin experience for him. He trundled to the top of the stairs to see what any of it was about, forgetting to even question – as was his typical way – if this was just another little tease before life decided to cut his throat all over again.

“Okay, now, you’ve got to be honest,” Thomas heard Sybil say as he descended the stairs to perch just behind Jimmy, who seemed to have been instructed to be an audience of sorts, while Sybil directed some breed of entertainment. As she came into view, he discovered her clad in a Grecian-inspired gown spun out of airy blue and gold fabrics and surrounded by a racket of discarded shopping bags and colorful packing tissue. She spun, apparently to demonstrate for Jimmy the billowing skirt and to more prominently display the strappy heels on her feet. Even in the dingy parlor, patches of sunlight filtered through the fabric and danced across her brocaded shoes.

Jimmy clapped, but Pancake had a more immediate need to inspect Sybil’s skirts with a probing snout. He shoved his nose underneath the hemline with canine brazenness, and Sybil made a little squeal of surprise, her manicured fingers popped over a little, rounded mouth. She then laughed and thrust her hands downward, looking very much like Marilyn over the subway grate as Pancake scooted between her legs and emerged on the other side in a flourish of taffeta and crinoline.

The pair of them burst out with hilarity at Pancake’s oblivious decorum, while Thomas dithered on the stairs, unnoticed and vaguely perturbed. It was only when the irritation pulsated through his wrists and into tightened fists that Thomas became aware that he was laughably jealous of their easy comradery. Now that everything was logged in an open book, whose pages fluttered easily in the breeze for anyone to see, an instinctively territorial sense had woven itself into his disposition. There was a certain security in having Sybil as his exclusive ally – a person he could shoot a meaningful look at every time the very mention of Jimmy had made his heart hurt – but now it felt like that particular safety net had been ripped out from beneath his soles. He’d go crashing down the stairs and headfirst through the wall, he thought as he allowed himself to be tortured by the whole idea of it.

It was only his heavy heels on the steps that even called attention to his presence as he whirled around and clomped back upstairs. He heard Jimmy call after him, though Thomas only wished he knew better what to even do with it, most certainly terrified his clumsy touch would crush such a fragile thing as easily as a papillion caught in a glass jar.

Returning to the unlit second floor, where only grim slats of light peered through half-closed doors and stained the dingy carpeting. Two steps towards the duck-stamped bedroom were all it took for Thomas to change his mind, shot with worry that the weird sensation that had chased him upstairs in the first place would only be multiplied in that little space that smelled so much like sandalwood and Jimmy.

Aimlessly, as if he’d gone running back under the haunter’s sheet he’d cast aside, he drifted down the hallway, drawn along by a series of framed photographs that lined the bare walls. There weren’t very many of them, but they gave Thomas another stark reminder that the little scraps of the childhood Jimmy had were still somehow more verdant and significant than even Thomas’s most lavish boyhood memory. (This was, Thomas remembered with a little cynicism, Christmas dinner with the Branson family, which still somehow seemed pale in comparison to the picture of tiny Jimmy, holding Pancake as a fluffy puppy and a holiday stocking in the arms of both his parents. He forced himself to wander away before he got too caught up on it, especially as he imagined his unconscious, bludgeoned father in some Manc hospital with coppers and the like swarming about.)

But as Thomas reached the end of the hall, where Jimmy’s father’s room loomed like a spiteful temptation, Thomas couldn’t help the notion that Jimmy was still nearby – even when he was most certainly alone. Perhaps it was his predisposition for isolation that chased Thomas into the abandoned bedroom, certain there was nowhere else in the flat that where he could be more alone. It was with a comfortable shiver that he entered the room, though he hated how much it relieved him to note that Jimmy and Sybil had become very muted as soon as he had.  

Despite the way Jimmy had been so snippy about Thomas’s initial exploration of the house, his father’s bedroom was almost disappointingly uninteresting. Thomas perched on the edge of a magazine-stacked armchair and surveyed the place, peering into the pewter sunlight that filtered through the heavy, drawn drapes clogging the one small window. The cloying stench of mold was far more intense here than it was in any other part of the uninhabited house – enough to wrinkle Thomas’s nose in distaste. Still, he remained, like he was trying to prove something to himself about Jimmy, or Jimmy’s father – or some other petty jealousy he wouldn’t know to be distressed over until he unearthed it.

The sought-after discovery manifested in a picture lying amid the milieu cluttering the bureau beside the armchair, though it wasn’t another photograph that had caught his eye. Instead, beneath a thin layer of dust, was a framed drawing that had been rendered in crayon on purple construction paper. Thomas picked it up curiously.

A child’s rendition of the London skyline filled the bottom half of the sheet, while crudely designed stars framed a circular moon towards the top. Big Ben had been drawn largely out of proportion so that its ornate clockface could be the image’s primary focus. On the largest hand, which was aimed at the 3, stood a little blond figure garbed in elfin green; he was flanked by a butterfly-like fairy and a fat dog. Jimmy’s name stamped the lower corner in young scrawl, almost large enough to be more dominant than any of the pictorial elements on the page. Despite himself, Thomas smiled at the drawing, unconsciously stroking Jimmy’s name through the glass.  

Thomas had not been a creative child, far more absorbed with technical interests found inside the cars at the Branson auto shop, but he didn’t think for a second his own father would have saved a scrap of such whimsy in such a sentimental fashion. Even before Thomas’s love of other men had manifested itself, his father had found other disappointments about his son. Never interested enough in religious studies, and then far too inquisitive; never the right friends (the Bransons were bloody _Catholics_ , for God’s sake), never the right backyard sports, never anything. Thomas had started smoking cigarettes at age thirteen from the stress of not being his sister or his mother – even though his mother was too dead for him to quite remember her face, and his sister didn’t ever have to pass through life with the same onerous expectations that came nailed to being the eldest son in the family. On two separate occasions, aged eight and fifteen respectively, he’d tried to run away: both times, he’d announced his destination as fantastical literary locations; both times, he’d barely got to the end of the street before his father had dragged him back by the hair, screaming.

_And now I’ve finally managed to get the jump_ , Thomas congratulated himself, albeit with a tone of solemnity. He touched the crayoned figure that sat high above London, warmed by the enormous curlicue that somehow seemed like the most accurate portrait of Jimmy’s fringe anyone could ever contrive.

He wondered if anyone even missed him.

An overexcited shout ran up the stairs and burst into the room. Thomas startled as if someone had actually come tearing through the empty doorway, and flung the framed drawing back onto the bureau as he hopped to his feet. Agitated, he fidgeted his way back into the hall, obsessing about nicotine and the onset of guilt that had tardily followed him into the back bedroom.

He returned to the mouth of the staircase in hopes he could slip back into his old position behind Jimmy without being noticed. But Jimmy seemed to have been explicitly in search of him, for he’d no sooner begun his second descent did Jimmy suddenly roll over on the bottom step, launching up onto his feet like a sportsman ready to fly down the track and up into the air. He was laughing in a way that still twanged a bead of jealousy within Thomas, who was more than fully aware that he had nothing to do with any of Jimmy’s current happiness – or Sybil’s, for that matter, as she made equally gushy noises of pleasure from the parlor. Thomas felt like he’d been sabotaged.

But then Jimmy had Thomas by the wrists, his golden fringe bouncing in an unending twirl over his brow as he amiably pulled Thomas down the stairs, enthusing, “You’ve got to see it, Thomas. You’ve just got to.”

And for all his troubled, sick fears, Thomas allowed himself to be towed along, completely at the whim of this laughing boy that had grabbed him by wrist and thrown him up into the sky. Then, in the front parlor, he was paraded by the whimsical girl who had protected him from the fall, and into the presence of her cousin, who floated in the center of the room enveloped in lace and white silk. Little crystals surrounded her like stars on her gown and the sheer veil that fell around her heart-shaped face, which glowed brighter than even the gown itself.

“Rose’s a bride,” Jimmy hissed into Thomas’s ear, almost like he’d just found some sort of incredibly rare bird nesting in the house; “A real bride!”

“I see that,” Thomas managed to blubber, well aware that he was probably staring at Rose’s shimmering raiment inappropriately. In retrospect, Thomas supposed he should have anticipated something like this was at the end of Sybil’s trek to London. At once, so much about her fit into place, culminating in the radiant beauty that now stood in the middle of an unhappy home like a fairy come to rejuvenate the entire place. Even Pancake seemed to be struck by awe, lying comfortably on the sofa as he, too, watched Rose fluff and smooth her skirts over and over with little, gloved fingers.

“Is it alright?” Rose fretted as Sybil orbited her, making little adjustments on the ensemble that neither Thomas or Jimmy could discern.

“It’s perfect,” Jimmy breathed, still clinging to Thomas with fingers braceleted around his forearms. His hold easily stole Thomas’s attention from Rose, left far more breathless at the way Jimmy’s tanned skin imprinted against his pallid complexion like gold. It made him want to say impulsive things he knew probably shouldn’t. He’d go too far on a gypsy’s whim – one that should be slowed and shaped in a less profound instance.

“I bet even your mother would like it,” Sybil inputted as she stood back to survey her handiwork, clearly proud of whatever minute fix she’d made to Rose.

“Well, you know why that won’t happen,” Rose pouted, fluctuating the magical ambiance with her momentary droop. It was righted almost immediately, however, as she quickly smoothed over the disappointment with another, much more cheerful thought: “Do you think Jack will like it?”

Of course, Jimmy had the most direct, sensible opinion: “Love, if he don’t like it, he don’t deserve you.” His words came over top Thomas’s inward realization that he wasn’t the only person in the world who had to crawl through it on hands and knees, desperately in search of a little light on the floor – or that a tiny firefly could be cultivated into something beautiful.

“Chin up, Rose,” Sybil came around to soften Jimmy’s directness; “That’s what we’re all here for.”

“I know,” Rose drooped again, her shoulders curving down into lace cap sleeves without posture. “I suppose I just always imagined being married surrounded by my family, not snuck into a spare weekend when no one would ever find out.”

“Yeah, well, don’t worry,” Jimmy felt the need to interject again. He jerked himself beside Thomas like he was trying to make them appear respectable as he insisted, “We can be your family.” But almost as soon as the suggestion had left his mouth, he had a secondary question, which he presented to Thomas with a tug at his wrist: “Can’t we?”

The tremble that ran through Thomas cracked through the papery shell that hid the vulnerability he’d been so careful to protect his whole life, falling away with a crumple that resounded more like snapping bones. In a moment, something lifted away inside Thomas, imbued with an understanding of what such a thing might really be like, or what it meant to even have one at all.

Practically blinded by epiphany, Thomas had to break away to sit down on the sofa, where Pancake inched across the cushions to lay his head in his lap. As Thomas absently stroked the St. Bernard’s soft coat, he was overwhelmed by the comprehension that, somehow, becoming lost had helped him discover where he belonged, terrifying and unsteadying a realization as that may be. He glanced over at Jimmy, who was staring at him curiously, and desperately wished he had the words to describe the shape of Jimmy’s place in his own inconceivable universe – a bright constellation around which to chart his planetary orbit.

_This is it. Today – the one I want_ , he thought with such profoundness, his vision was almost stricken with a weeping illness; _This is the life I choose_. 

“Thomas?” Jimmy was still watching him as if he could see the change in Thomas by the very flecks of his irises.

“It’s all for you,” Thomas breathed to a room that had faded into pantomime stillness, its only vibrancy emanating from Jimmy’s person. “This sway in me life: it’s all you and yours.”

So removed from Sybil and Rose were the two men that neither noticed the subtle glances they threw at one another, not at all idiotic to the electricity that was passing between them. Even Pancake’s fur seemed static with the charge connecting Thomas to Jimmy, Jimmy to Thomas, one hand to another, a soul to the soulful. So much seemed to be dotting the space around them, it was a wonder the very air itself didn’t collapse and drain. Jimmy’s breathing was loud enough to crack an eardrum as he stumbled towards Thomas, fingers reaching for Thomas like he’d never tried to hold him before.

“Thomas, I….”

He was interrupted by the most unwelcome of commotions. Albeit softly, the ringtone version of ‘I’m Shipping Up to Boston’ sang out from a discreet place amid the overturned dress boxes and shopping bags. At once, Sybil was on the hunt to silent the device, but just the picture of her crawling through the meadow of crumpled stripes and polka-dots was enough to shatter the spell, and the words stuck in Jimmy’s throat quickly dissipated with a nervous swallow.

For Thomas, everything leaped into double time to accommodate the change in atmosphere. What was once languid and wrapped in golden rays had transformed into a fluorescent circus, bannered with fluttering skirts, tossed crepe paper and cocoa-crème fur. Pancake’s massive girth shoving against Thomas’s belly was a titanic weight, the wetness of his snout against Thomas’s bare wrist a lurid jolt. The murmur of the two women as they discussed their exact pathway through the morning rang into Thomas’s ears with the piercing quality of a blitzkrieg siren. All of it rotated around Jimmy, who lingered, buoyant, in the middle of the hubbub: Jimmy’s begged Thomas’s attention with entreating eyes, though Thomas remained dumb and incapable of speech as he clutched Pancake and tried to calm his racing mind. In his own world, Thomas was still listening, waiting for Jimmy to finish his dangling sentence.

“Golly, where is it?” wondered Rose, while Pancake barked unhelpfully.

The sound jarred Thomas, snapping him out of his delirium. He glanced around as Pancake continued to shift on the sofa, squirming over his lap and swiping his tail across the cushions. One of his back haunches twitched as the animal struggled to keep his wide body aboard, but the effort was moot: Pancake was quick to decide that making himself fit was less important than sniffing Jimmy’s crotch – which quickly stole Jimmy’s attention and left Thomas frozen, forgotten against the wall.

There was a brief silence as the phone dropped to voicemail, before almost immediately starting up again with the same tune – though an apparent leap in volume made the hunt feel that much more urgent. As Thomas traced the indentation Pancake had left in his wake, he realized that he was also staring down at the prize. The mobile poked out from between cushions that had been trapped beneath Jimmy’s enormous pet, concealing it from view. Automatically, he reached for it, which was somehow easier than announcing his discovery to the others, who all seemed too busy to notice him. Besides, it was Tom’s name flashing across the screen, and answering it was practically reflexive.

“Thomas?” came Tom’s rather soothing lilt, though the confusion was new. “Where’s Sybil?”

Oddly let down, Thomas drowned in an ennui similar to the one that had struck him earlier, when he’d found Sybil and Jimmy laughing without him. “Nice to hear from you, too,” he sniped back with unfair nastiness – especially when he realized that the others had taken notice of his discovery. Something in Sybil’s eagerness crushed any of Thomas’s matchmaking hopes for the pair, replaced with a possessive kind of jealousy that came to him more naturally when he felt cornered. He barely registered anything he did when he was warped by such moods.  

“I got a call from some London solicitor who seems to know her – and _you_ ,” said Tom, a sobering clarification that whipped the melancholy out of Thomas’s head. He was almost immediately on his feet, walking brusquely to the front door as Tom continued on with anxious concern: “Are you two in _London_ , Thomas? Is that where you’ve gone gallavantin’ off to? What’s next? Brighton? _Paris_?”

By then, Thomas had wrenched the front door open and stepped outside. The fresh breeze outside cooled Thomas’s cheeks as he wandered to the curb to lean against the Pinto, which drew him to its side with magnetic, habitual force. Rusty suspension coils whined beneath Thomas’s weight as he settled against the Pinto’s bonnet, mobile pressed against his ear: “It were a last ditch effort comin’ here,” Thomas said plainly; “Unsurprisingly, askin’ after Philip turned ugly.”

“You knew it would,” Tom deadpanned. Not keen to dwell on the subject of Philip longer than necessary, Tom was quick to drive the conversation onwards: “At least this new fellow Sybil’s found seems a bit more worth his salt, ey? He called earlier, askin’ if I could speak with him about your – ah – _situation_.” The emphasis on his final word came out with a particularly Irish twang, slurring the middle syllable into another vowel entirely.

The reminder tore a hole straight through the veil Thomas had lowered over his runaway history. Riding with Jimmy through the countryside had done more than satisfy Thomas’s latent wanderlust: he was an orphan picked up by none other than Peter Pan himself, whisked away like a lost boy to a place where time stood still before him. Now he was being called back by the nagging reality he wished would just vanish in a puff of fairy dust.  

Slowing himself down, the melancholy ebbed back into Thomas as he asked, “Well, what did you tell him?” An unheaved sigh clogged his throat as he picked at a bit of peeling paint on the Pinto’s body. He welcomed the distraction of whether the car was indeed green or orange.

“Somethin’ I ought tell you as well,” replied Tom in a way that made every hair on Thomas’s body prickle. It was only after the explanation was delivered that Thomas even knew he’d been suffocating his lungs with a tight knot.

“I saw that friend of your sister’s…” Tom began slowly.

“Phyllis Baxter,” Thomas supplied automatically, though he barely registered the shifting of his lips.

“Right, Ms. Baxter,” Tom continued with clinical precision, warming up to what he knew would always be a tender subject. “Well, she’s told me that your sister’s gone to see your father.” There was a momentary bleat of heavy breathing exchanged across the line before Tom delivered the punch: “Apparently, he’s woken up.”

The level of Thomas’s rasp curdled to a sticky quiet, unsure how he should best receive such news. The fingers that had been peeling the Pinto’s paint had quivered to stillness, while his churning gut rappelled downward on a swinging cord. He flattened his palm against the bonnet, wishing he had brought the car keys with him: trapping himself inside the Pinto’s cabin with rolled up windows and a silent stereo seemed like the most natural place to hide from the inevitable.

He closed his eyes and sucked a stinging wind though his nostrils, holding it in like it was a balloon to keep him afloat, and said, “I s’pose he’ll have told the bobbies all about what I’ve done. End of the line and that?”  

“Not – not exactly,” answered Tom, which Thomas hadn’t been at all prepared to hear. But before Thomas could even demand that Tom stop fooling him around, Tom was launching into a more detailed explanation – practically anticipating the tirade roiling beneath his best friend’s tongue.

“According to Ms. Baxter, it seems he remembers the attack,” Tom continued with a very odd, indifferent element to his words. The breath Thomas had been holding plummeted down after his stomach, giving Thomas a rush of lightheadedness. Then Tom finished his tale: “But as far as the culprit, he’s apparently got not recollection. Has been tellin’ the coppers it were a smash and grab type situation.” He twisted the same syllable on his last word just as he had before, though Thomas barely noticed this time around.

“He…. What?” Thomas choked. Flabbergast riddled Thomas like a he’d been shot full of bullets, and he hunched like he’d been bent on a cold hinge at the waist, staring blankly at the car parked in front of the Pinto: its taillights blurred together into nothingness.

“He can’t remember, Thomas. He thinks it was some stranger that broke in,” came the repetition, though it didn’t do much to help the idea settle in. Even Tom’s continued assurance that luck hadn’t completely forsaken Thomas filtered through him like phrases sinking beneath the sea, where he languished at the bottom of a column of nauseating, floating bubbles. Even his movements came sluggishly, like he was fighting the pressure of the deepest tides. Somewhere, dimly, in his peripheral, a faint shape soared into focus, tightening itself into Jimmy’s familiar shape: he was standing halfway between the Pinto and his father’s dismal little terrace, calling after Thomas like he was skimming dappled waves high above.

“Anyway, that’s what I told your solicitor,” Tom was saying, though Thomas wasn’t completely positive he’d registered any more embellishment Tom might have since added. “That, and all the other terrible stuff he’s done you, anyway – y’know, in case they start wonderin’ why you’ve turned up missin’ and all.”

“Well, it’s only a matter of time until they do, put two and two together,” Thomas grumbled morosely, distracted by the sway of Jimmy’s figure as he approached the Pinto. The fog in his chest thinned with each step Jimmy took towards the car, his lungs draining like he’d just broken through the ocean’s foamy lid and thrown his head back to drink in the sweet air that clung to Jimmy’s being. Everything about it seemed complicated and stupid – and more natural than even patter of Thomas’s own heart.

“A regular criminal, you,” murmured Jimmy as he flicked his chin at Sybil’s mobile, which threatened to slip from Thomas’s grasp. Thomas wore a stiff expression, despite the jubilance that ran through him to have Jimmy all to himself.

“I don’t mind,” Thomas quipped as Jimmy came to rest on the Pinto’s bonnet – the only place Thomas ever wanted to be. “Since a life of crime stole me even a moment with you.”

For a few blissful seconds, Jimmy merely blinked at him. Then, like a secret knob had been twisted up to high volume within the blond, he threw his head back and brayed a vicious, musical laughter at the thick clouds icing the London sky. Tom’s tincan voice fizzed over the mobile that was barely touching Thomas’s cheek anymore; he might have been asking Thomas what was happening, or perhaps making an acute observation about the way of the universe: Thomas didn’t hear, far too entranced by the beautiful mess wrapped up in Jimmy’s playful tee-shirt and jeans.

“I’ve been tryin’ to steal a moment alone with you all day,” Jimmy announced so plainly, it blindsided Thomas. The shape of his lips was tender, curving gently into plump, cherry cheeks. Stupidly, Thomas wondered if that smile was something that bloomed only in their secret hours, where no one else knew them quite the same way.

Despite the fact that the mobile was still clutched loosely in hand, Thomas had forgotten he was holding it until he heard Tom speak up from down the line: “Is that the boy you stole away with?” he demanded to know, though he was also chuckling with the sort of private amusement that suggested that Tom already had the answer.

“You know that’s not quite the way of it at all!” Thomas exploded with the same ferocity as the flush that bombed his entire face. He floundered to explain himself, even as Jimmy nudge himself close enough to fit their shoulders against one another; “That is to say – I’m sorry, Tom,” he blathered on a bit mindlessly; “I know I never think things through properly but… I just needed some time for meself, and –”

Tom halted him before he had a chance to throw himself back upon the pyre of despair. “And maybe it was meant to happen this way all along,” Tom concluded without missing a beat. “Maybe what you needed was just the runnin’ start. Get the wind under your heels.”

Though there was nothing particularly guiling about what Tom had to say, catching Jimmy’s fingers bent against his own made the thought come off as profound to Thomas. He was stuck on how to respond, lost in the breadth of the sunbeam that warmed the Pinto’s bonnet beneath their thighs. He ended up resorting to his usual sarcasm, which was his default when he couldn’t quite get his head to catch up with his mouth. “You only say that ‘cause I found Ms. Sybil while I were tryin’ to stick me feet back up on the ground,” Thomas retorted with an evidential smirk in his tone. He glanced over at Jimmy, who met his arched eyebrow with a snigger.

“I won’t complain,” replied Tom nonchalantly. Thomas imagined him examining his motor oiled fingernails as he spoke, and then supposed Tom was going to float through the rest of his day in a stupor of self-satisfaction long after he hung up. “You take care of yourself, Thomas,” the Irishman said by way of parting. “And keep me up to date – especially about that boy of yours.”

“Mind yourself!” Thomas tried to admonish, though Tom had ended the call far too swiftly for Thomas to get the last word in. He allowed the mobile to drop to his side, clunking his wrist against the Pinto’s grill as he tried to absorb everything he’d just learned from Tom. He was certain there had to be a catch, even in the haze of such silver lining. It was only a matter of time.

“I’ve really fucked this one up,” he slumped. He patted down his trouser pocket in search of the crushed cigarette packet that was crammed inside, and inserted a bent smoke between his lips. He produced his lighter from the other pocket and set the cigarette aflame.

“How so?” wondered Jimmy, who was groping for Thomas’s cigarettes with a familiar touch that ran across the tendons standing up in Thomas’s hand, over the knobs of his knuckles and over manicured nails. He pried the cigarettes out of Thomas’s loosened grip and selected Thomas’s inverted lucky to light up. He puffed away at the fag in silence, his eyelids heavy over sleepy irises as he watched the smoke twirl upwards into the fog.

“I were a right idiot to think I’d ever find absolution,” Thomas said around another mouthful of smoke, which pooled over his bottom lip before chasing Jimmy’s cloudy breath into the sky. With the cigarette pinched between his two forefingers, Thomas tried to touch the cross that no longer hung around his neck, momentarily forgetting that the silver charm now lived among hidden treasures in Jimmy’s room. Anxiety bubbled up in the shape of the missing trinket, and he practically beat his sternum in frustration when roving fingers continued to find nothing to worry between them. “They’re goin’ to find me out any day now,” Thomas continued to fret as he clenched at the emptiness; “You can’t escape hell. It always follows you no matter how far you go.”

The stress tensed in Thomas’s wrist, and he crammed his cigarette between his lips, chomping down on the filter as he returned to pulling at his shirt and drumming his chest in frustration. He was a man whose gravity had become wholly uncentered – a man with feet that danced on the stars and hands that waited to catch the moon, but was still falling from the sky. Loose in the wind, he tried to regulate himself with flailing arms, though the effort mostly just recalled explicit pictures of the ugliness in his father right before he’d taken that fateful swing of his bat.

“And I’ll get what I deserve, just like he did,” Thomas decided aloud, extolling nicotine-poisoned air from the corner of his mouth. Then he grabbed at the cigarette, took a long, steady drag that made the tip flare to a vibrant cinder, and then pulled it from his lips as he searched the heavens for the guidance he’d lost. “I really ain’t no better,” Thomas whispered; “Like father, like son – and Holy Ghost.”

“That ain’t true!”

The electric zing of Jimmy’s touch married the boom of his declaration, ripping Thomas out of his self-inflicted martyrdom. Thomas glanced up to find Jimmy’s long fingers pulling at his wrist until Thomas’s hand was safely encapsulated between Jimmy’s palm and his thigh. Jimmy’s creased expression was focused elsewhere, perhaps somewhere in the neighbor’s shrubbery, but he was, regardless, clearly attached to Thomas with no qualms.

“You know that just ain’t true,” Jimmy emphasized in the pregnant calm that followed Thomas’s little episode. He pressed Thomas’s hand more tightly into his denim-wrapped leg, enough so that the top stitching of the garment dotted a pattern into Thomas’s skin. “You’re liberated – you’re _free_ ,” Jimmy went on passionately, though the stillness in his frame contrasted sharply to his discourse. But then, he whipped his attention in Thomas’s direction, aiming his soliloquy at Thomas’s flushed profile: “You love me,” he finished raggedly, hair tossing in the breeze; “No one cruel or foul would ever have the patience to do a fool thing like that.”

The Pinto groaned as Thomas shifted his weight and stared at Jimmy with such amazement, the whole world seemed to be an unreal dream. Upon the soft gusts that feathered through Thomas’s black hair, a recollection of Jimmy singing softly to the night, and a keen understanding of what it meant. 

_D’ya want to go to the seaside?  
_ _I’m not tryin’ to say that everybody wants to go…._   

Despite the zeal that had ruled Thomas for the last week, it was there that the nuance of it all began to clarify with more transparency. Jimmy was just the same as him underneath all the ridiculous fanfare that had made him so attractive in the first place. There, perched on the bonnet of a rickety 1972 Ford Pinto with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, was a boy just as lonely and unwanted as Thomas, fighting a world that had spat him out.

It struck Thomas that if any of it had happened another day, at another time, another place, it might not have been like this – though now the very imagining of a life without Jimmy Kent had become completely unfathomably to Thomas. _Maybe Tom were right_ , thought he, pondering the afternoon sun upon the square of Jimmy’s jaw, the round of his cheek and the slope of his nose; _Maybe this is all for a reason, and God had a plan for me after all_.

“No one’s ever loved me before,” Jimmy murmured to no one in particular, though his mouth had curved back into that secret shape only Thomas knew. “Not the way you do.”

It turned some sort of calcified gear within Thomas to be acknowledged for such a thing, especially by someone whose very existence powered the dead sparkplugs on his heartstrings and amplified the wiring in his veins. Thomas had always considered himself a selfish man, even in matters of affection, and hadn’t been prepared to be noticed for qualities he’d assumed were broken to begin with. _A selfish man who was saved by another selfish man_ , thought Thomas with a sense of awe, though he was hard pressed to decide which one of them was which.

He flicked his dying cigarette in an effort to appear nonchalant. “Well, don’t go runnin’ out to buy your own wedding dress just yet,” Thomas joked nervously in lieu of telling Jimmy such a grandiose notion of deliverance.

Something about Thomas’s demeanor must have given Jimmy some sort of palpitation. He clamped Thomas’s hand more tightly against his thigh, threading their fingers together like he’d conceived a possibility in which Thomas might slip off the Pinto’s bonnet and through a crumbling in the tarmac underneath. Thomas held his breath, waiting with blind anticipation for any sort of reaction from Jimmy, and then lamented that he’d gone too far – as usual. Jimmy had opened up a bit, and Thomas had stupidly seized control and stomped on the accelerator without permission.

_Bigmouth strikes again,_ Thomas was halfway through thinking when Jimmy finally stirred the silence.

“Make no mistake, it’ll be you in the ruffles, Mr. Barrow,” Jimmy glibly informed Thomas while contemplating the nearly burnt out end of his own cigarette. A cheap laugh rode his features, no doubt picturing such a thing in glorified detail. Then he gave Thomas a wink and a shake of the hand, saying, “But no need to go rushin’ in. One step at a time, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Thomas agreed softly. He squinted into the afternoon sun, peering at the skyline stamped indigo upon the haze; “One step at a time.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! Hopefully I'll be back on track with the next chapter soon. We're getting near the end -- believe it or not. Whew! 
> 
> (Then back to In the Fade!)


	16. Out of the Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose gets married.

 

The next morning, Thomas managed to sleep through an unending swell of events dancing about the nest he’d made of Jimmy’s small bed and rubber duck blankets. In the aluminum English weather, which smudged out the sun with a thin mist of drizzle, he’d slumbered through Pancake’s early morning insistence that Jimmy disentangle himself from Thomas’s arms in favor of their traditional jog at sunrise, and continued to snooze, uninterrupted, in a deep mesmerism that had not touched him in a literal age, while Sybil and Rose bustled up and down the stairs in a whipped frenzy. Beneath the cover of sleep, he was still kissing the inside of Jimmy’s thigh and suffering all the other little deaths found thereabouts, just as he had done all through the blessed small hours. He had no reason to revisit the sun-stamped ceiling, whose color stifled his breath with the fearful flavor of reality.

“Thomas, oh, Thomas,” was the dreamy sigh wafting through his mind, laced with the heavy chords of Jimmy’s voice. “I do hope your plan isn’t to go out like _that_.”

The words fit strangely with the sensual image that still captured his imagination, and Thomas scrunched his brow and burrowed deeper into the pillow, which bore Jimmy’s musk so strongly, it was like the plush shape was Jimmy himself. A jostling motion shook through him, radiating from his shoulder and through his core, as the sentence was repeated, this time bearing a sharper tone that abruptly snipped through the extended hours of lovemaking in Thomas’s mind. He was pulled abruptly on his back, and the darkness of his dreams went ablaze as his eyelids were wearily unshuttered.

“Thomas,” said Jimmy, like an ongoing cycle of his name would hurry him along. The tone of his cheeks and curling fringe blurred together and then stretched apart, setting themselves into the distinct contours of his face. Long fingers slid into view, coasting across Thomas’s forehead to brush a forelock away from his eyes. “Let’s get a move on, right?” Jimmy emphasized as his nails continued to comb through Thomas’s hair – a wholly tranquilizing situation for Thomas, even as Jimmy went on: “You’re goin’ to make Rose late for her own wedding at this rate!”

It took Thomas a moment to fully grasp the actual meaning in Jimmy’s urgency, his groggy simpleness still interrupted by dregs of his metaphysical memories. He craved a smoke, and had a dark and blistering headache that was only agitated further by the shock of Pancake’s slobbery tongue against the sole of one foot. He narrowed his eyes tiredly, only half cognizant of Pancake’s drooping face resting upon the edge of the bed. Jimmy gave the dog a scratch behind the ears, which only seemed to encourage the animal to lick Thomas again.  

“You’re takin’ this wedding business quite seriously over a girl you just met,” Thomas said through pursed lips as he tried to push an exuberant Pancake away with a flex of his bare toes. “I might say I were jealous,” he added with a grain of sincerity.

The silent breath Jimmy took in was hardly noticeable to anyone but Pancake, who whinnied at his master with concern. “It’s just nice, that’s all,” Jimmy absently mumbled in the direction of the doorway, through which a chorus of girlish chittering emanated from downstairs. Pancake trundled in circles around Jimmy’s legs, knotting himself about the blond’s bare thigh, while Jimmy continued to rake his fingernails through the dog’s thick coat.

The solemnity with which Jimmy spoke incited Thomas to winch himself up onto bent elbows, but the moment had already passed by the time he did so. Jimmy wafted away from the bedside to pour his energy into dressing, while Thomas shivered to watch. Stepping out of the running shorts leftoever from his morning jog, Jimmy threw them in the general direction of his duffel bag, though they ended up on Thomas’s knees instead. He was already wearing a starched shirt, the collar of which was stood up, unbuttoned and in wont of a tie. Jimmy proceeded to divest himself of his running attire – trainers, athletic socks, a pair of those bowtie penguin boxers – and then outfitted himself with the linen suit he’d pulled from the wardrobe.

He was just cramming the tails of his shirt into pleated trousers when he peeked up at Thomas, who still remained motionless in the place where he had awoken. He wondered aloud about it: “D’ya just not want to go?”

Startled at such an assumption, Thomas viscerally shook his head in the negative. “S’not that,” he quietly said.

Jimmy cocked his head and blinked quixotically at Thomas, as if to press the question further. His frenzied movements slowed to a tremble at his belt buckle, anticipating.

Thomas cut his bottom lip with a sharp canine as he tried to fight the image of how Jimmy might look with those dress slacks crumpled around his ankles, suit jacket draped from elbow to elbow. Habitually, he groped for the cross that no was no longer chained fast round his neck, though still choked on sentiments trapped in his throat. The words rasped over his tongue: “It’s just that, sometimes, only when I look at you, it’s like the whole universe were about to collapse onto me head for love of you.”

He clenched a tight fist like he meant to jerk on the invisible trinket lying upon his sternum, but instead caught a knot of his cotton shirt instead. It embarrassed him to behave like he’d only just discovered what it meant to be lonely, except it hadn’t ever bothered him until he met Jimmy. Trying to ignore the sentiments every time they nagged him didn’t work the same way his usual indifference had in the past. He thought his bones might snap from the tension if he continued to keep it to himself much longer.

“I thought I’d been close to it before,” he swallowed, his thumb now pressed beneath his chin like it might control the intensity of his words; “But every day, I worry about what I’ll do if I’ve got to spend it without you, and I just….” His sentence petered off as the intensity of Jimmy’s stare launched him skyward and then punctured him straight through. The force with which he hit the bed flung the words through his lips like they’d been knocked out of his lungs: “When I see stuff like Miss Rose and Jack, it makes me panic that the best thing I’ ever found were just some kind of gypsy thing. One that’ll get up and go before the sun even had its first stretch.”

The static that charged the room crackled in Thomas’s ears as he bit down on his admission. He was certain he’d come off as idiotic, while all the while trying to figure out why love was so hard to say. Gaze cast downward, he traced the hem of Jimmy’s shorts, which cascaded over his lap in hopes to distract himself – though all he won out of it was a very clear depiction of the flex of Jimmy’s thighs as he sped across predawn pavements.

There was a level of calculation in Jimmy’s soft response, like he was trying to carefully avoid both affirmation and denial altogether. “You know me and Pancake always come back when we run,” he said as he pulled his belt through the buckle and fastened it. He already looked well enough to shine a light through the gloomy morning, but the picture of him so neat and prim transfigured him into something unreal. “You know we’d never” – here, Jimmy swallowed audibly and fumbled for Pancake like he was grasping for an anchor rope – “that _I’d_ never wish you anythin’ but happiness. You _know_ that, right?”

Thomas couldn’t help but frown: “That sounds so final.”

“I certainly hope happiness is final for you, Thomas,” Jimmy murmured softly. His gaze was shaded by long lashes as he bent to pluck up his suit jacket and shrug it on. It was slightly too tight for him and noticeably short in the sleeve for his adult frame, which he attempted to mask by casually rolling his shirt cuffs up and over. Plucking at stray dog hairs that had adhered to the fabric, Jimmy was almost inaudible when he added, “I hope I make it just so.”

Though Thomas couldn’t be positive he’d heard Jimmy correctly, the sentiment still bolstered an unparalleled bubble of hope within him. A quiet chuckle sneezed through him as he attempted to cull his giddiness, which had made him buoyant enough to step off the bed without the shackles of gravity. He felt a renewed sense of self, as if the ennui that had surrounded Rose’s wedding had been drawn back as easily as the covers he’d just flung to the floor. Standing to his full height in tartan pajama bottoms, Thomas at least tried to stow his broadening smile, embarrassed that even the slightest hint of assurance from Jimmy was more than enough to rocket him around the moon and back. He felt as though he’d been standing in the same place since the very beginning, trying to find his way into Jimmy’s heart, but this morning had saved him from his sinking soles and defeatist’s spirit.

But before Thomas had a chance to seek anything more about it, Jimmy was striding out of the room with Pancake as close by as a second shadow. Jimmy carried a certain electrolyte vibrancy with him when he left, like the universe was wired to his every twitch, and pulsed with a current rampant in energy and life. Left alone to figure out his own wardrobe for the special occasion, Thomas’s skin still prickled with electricity even still. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as directionless as he’d thought, magnetized like he’d finally caught hold of the swinging compass needle he’d been clutching after his whole life.

In his case, he had a tweed blazer that could dress up his plain cricket jumper. He clothed himself quickly, spending the most time on his hair. The mirror in Jimmy’s room was almost completely papered with old stickers, and he had to peer through the gaps between the peeling shapes to style his appearance with a pocket comb. Then, as he sat on the edge of the mattress to pull on Jimmy’s red trainers – the only pair of shoes he had left – he examined the little bedside table. The top drawer was hanging open, mostly because it was where Jimmy stashed all his midnight accoutrements, and had been frequently raided by both men since they’d become more intimate. But in the daylight, it was the small dish of coins that stood out with a dull glimmer. Lying atop the collection of money was Thomas’s silver cross, nestled in the coil of its snapped silver chain. Once he noticed it, one of Thomas’s hands had automatically found the unladen dip in his clavicle, which he habitually massaged even as he stared at the discarded trinket, thinking. After wearing it every day since he’d been small, even to sleep and bathe, he felt naked to be without it.

 _And yet…_ he intoned mentally, clinking the cross against its bed of brass with a trembling fingertip. There was a sore temptation to pluck it up and at least carry it with him in pocket – if only for safe keeping. The cross was a talisman of his past, forged out of old grudges and unabsolved pain, and it was disquieting to see it so separate from his person. He pressed another finger into the base of his throat, like he was trying to recreate its presence, and then dared to wonder if he could be who he wanted without the heft of it around his neck. He released the pressure, squinting like he ran the risk of falling apart without his badge of shame. His knuckles, pale and milky white in the drawer, refocused beneath his quivering eyelashes, unable to shake the amazement that the strange world would still welcome him when he returned from such a dizzying precipice. He withdrew his shaking touch from the bed of coin, a breath suspended within his solar plexus. A twenty-nine year old spell had been broken.

For fear of his own doubts, Thomas flung the drawer closed before he had a chance to reconsider his need for such masochistic sentimentality. All his secrets seemed so petty to him in that moment, stamped out by his simple wish to remain upon Jimmy’s palm instead. The drama of his affair with Philip and the tragedy of his love for Edward – his own unkindness, which was fueled by the contempt of his father – all seemed like a far and distant nightmare, snuffed out with a pinched candlewick. Hurriedly, he backed towards the door, stopping only to fish his cigarettes out of the trousers he’d worn the day before, and then marched towards the stairs with the intention to have a smoke.

On his way, Thomas was greeted with reminders of the day’s main event. The explosion of shopping bags and crepe tissue still littered the front room like flowery shrapnel. In the kitchen, where Sybil was wrangling a clutch of dahlias, baby’s breath and amaranth with a wide ribbon, the remains of a sumptuous breakfast spread covered the table. Amid sprigs of foliage, Sybil idly snacked on melon pieces she’d wrapped with prosciutto whenever she took a pause to consider her arrangement. She was already wearing the cerulean and gold gown she’d modeled for Jimmy the day before, her hair done up in a rhinestone-crusted hairband that dripped with strings of pearls. A large peacock feather curled from one temple and over the crown of her head like a vintage fashionista.

“Mind that you eat,” she said as Thomas entered the room. She didn’t glance up, but there was a smile gracing her scarlet lips. “Maybe you could make a plate for Jimmy as well,” she added, lifting the bouquet so that she might survey her handiwork. “He ran outside so quickly, I worry he won’t get a chance to have anything before it’s time.”

“This is all happenin’ rather quickly,” Thomas observed as he neared the table, though his craving for a cigarette far outweighed his desire to eat. That need was only exacerbated when he noticed a column of _The Telegraph_ poking out from beneath a large plate of cheese in the middle of the table, which advertised that Manchester police were seeking new leads since the chief witness in their case had become unreliable. _Missing Son May Hold Link_ , proclaimed the headline. Thomas reached for the cheese and dragged it over the folded broadsheet. “Rather impulsive, wouldn’t you say?” he posited slowly.

Sybil was too distracted with her flower arranging to pay much mind to much else, though she did answer when spoken to. “It might seem that way to you,” she began. She paused long enough to lay the bouquet down and tie a large bow around the cluster of wet stems. “But I can assure you, just because it’s all be done according to feel, _impulse_ has very little to do with it,” she continued as she began to weave the delicate garlands of baby’s breath around the larger blooms.

Thomas watched her work with fascination, transfixed by the artful beauty of her labor. “S’pose so,” he murmured, shoving his hands into his pocket, where the edge of his cigarette packet danced right at the tips of his fingers. “I mean, it was on the plan for you to make your way here beforehand and that.”

“Well, in a fashion, perhaps it’s a little bit so,” Sybil agreed, finally diverting her attention from the flowers to Thomas. She then took to loading a dish with a sampling of manchego, taleggio, capicola, prosciutto and fruit. “But you can trip and fall and land right where you’re meant to be. And you’ll know if it’s right.”

“Is that what happened with Miss Rose and Jack?” Thomas asked obtusely.

“Happens to lots of us,” Sybil replied with a cryptic air about her. She got up to present Thomas with her food-laden plate, which was garnished with a crust of bread and two forks. “Every day, you’d find,” she added as she insistently thrust the plate into Thomas’s hands; “Half the time, you don’t even have a clue what you’re waiting for until that moment you realize you’ve started _breathing_.”

Dumbly, Thomas accepted the plate, privately stuck on his own follies. It had taken him his whole life to slide into the place where he stood in that exact moment, but for the first time, he reviewed every precious step it had taken to get there. Smoke had stung his vision for most of the duration, his heart too hot with fire and blood to let him properly monitor a damn thing about his direction in life – or so it had been until he’d climbed into Jimmy’s beat-up Pinto and relinquished his control. Now, it was hard to determine if it was more frightening that he’d allowed himself to stumble this far, or the prospect of returning to the way he used to be. Would this pleasant fiction deteriorate in a cascade of sepia and ochre at summer’s end? He stared blankly over Sybil’s shoulder until the amaranth blurred against the dahlias in double.

“Sometimes you only get one chance at it,” Sybil continued in lieu of Thomas’s silence. “Other times, you’ve got to chase it down.”

He was dimly aware of her shifting her position, followed by a tug at his lapel. At once, bright splotch of pink and purple exploded against his heart, where Sybil was affixing a small boutonniere to his blazer. A spike of amaranth encircling a handsome dahlia came into focus as she fussed over its exact position in Thomas’s buttonhole.

“For the family,” she said by way of explanation before turning to retrieve another boutonniere from the table, which she then laid atop the cheese plate in Thomas’s grip. “Be sure you get Jimmy to eat,” she added, patting his elbow affectionately. In a whirl of spectral blues, she returned to her seat at the table and picked up the bouquet with renewed fervor; “I think he’s gone to clean out the Pinto.”  

Thomas remained transfixed by the project, admiring the weave of flowers as though Sybil were crafting spring itself in her hands. Then he remembered his cigarettes, and pushed off towards the front door. Balancing the breakfast plate on one arm, Thomas passed by his cricket bat on his way outside, weathering a rather violent drop in the pit of his stomach as the cherry lacquer flashed through his peripheral. There was something oddly liberating about forcing himself to continue on without rushing to pull the bat into his care.

 _It’s not the only thing tetherin’ me to the ground anymore_ , he resolutely commanded himself as he wrenched the front door open and stepped into the humid daylight. At the end of the pavement, the Pinto sparked electric gold against the drab London street beneath it. A surrealistic waltz of bubbles skipped around the little car as Pancake splashed through a sudsy puddle he’d pulled out of the slop bucket near the front bumper, while Jimmy painstakingly tended to the rear window with a towel over one shoulder and hands that moved in secret behind the car’s silhouette. Intense focus marked Jimmy’s expression, perhaps detailing the Pinto’s chrome with fastidious detail. His trouser legs were rolled up to the knee, revealing argyle tall socks in black trainers. The floating suds glimmered as if to enchant Thomas, who was so lost for Jimmy, Thomas could swear he lit the very day itself. In the vast sea of unknowing, Jimmy felt like home.

“Quit your mitherin’, Pancake! We’ve just got ourselves spiffed up,” Jimmy snapped at the Saint Bernard. The smack of chuddy between his teeth came with the crackle of a large bubble against his nose – a perfect encapsulation of the spirit that made even Jimmy’s rougher attributes sweet as candy to Thomas’s mind.

Pancake yapped obstinately at his master, staking his allegiance to the merry suds. Then he pawed at the bucket until it tipped over, crowding the air with a new platoon of bubbles. A thin patina of water clung to Pancake’s fur with soapy foam.

Curiously, Thomas neared the car, still balancing the plate on one arm so that he might pop open his packet of cigarettes and pull one out by the teeth. He lit up just as he reached the curb, pocketing his lighter in order to pull on the cigarette. A light buzz of calm swooned through his entire body, reminding him that it had been almost a full day since his last smoke. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to go that long without completely falling apart.  

“Just ignore him,” Jimmy said to Thomas, though he was glowering at Pancake through the rosy pink of another bubblegum burst. Then, putting the dog out of mind, he gestured for Thomas to stand beside him with an urgent twirl of his wrist. “More importantly, right – what d’ya think of this?” he asked, indicating the Pinto with what Thomas quickly realized was a thin brush. In his other hand, a small tin was perched atop a palm crusted with white paint. Upon the car’s back window, he’d painstakingly written out the words ‘Goin’ to the Chapel!’. A pair of bells and a rose had been outlined beside the phrase, giving it a rather personal touch.

“Well?” Jimmy pressed when Thomas didn’t immediately react. “D’ya think Miss Rose’ll like it?”

Truthfully, Thomas had no idea whether she would, but that had little bearing on his answer. “I think it’s a right fine thing,” he complimented, rather touched by the sentimentality that Jimmy often worked so hard to camouflage. The soppy fool that resided within his own deeper recesses spun a fiction that described Thomas as the object of Jimmy’s softer attention.

“Good,” Jimmy beamed, sounding rather pleased with himself. He set the brush and tin down on the curb and rubbed his hands together to flake the dried paint off his hands. “’Cause I volunteered to play footman for the day, drivin’ her and that. But I wanted there to at least _one_ special thing.”

“Must’ve done, since you’re out here in your nice Salfords,” Thomas observed with a quick glance down at Jimmy’s socks. A splatter of paint dotted his knee and disrupted the argyle patterning around his calves, but Thomas found it endearing. With a long drag on his cigarette, Thomas proffered the breakfast plate with its corsage garnish instead: “But perhaps it’s not the most important bit, yeah?”

Jimmy seemed oblivious to Thomas’s comment at first, bent at the waist to mush his trouser cuffs back down to his ankles. To no avail, he fussed over the highwater length with a series of tugs, and then straightened up with a certain recalibration in demeanor. The distance that Jimmy usually wore on his face had melted away, revealing an unfiltered expression Thomas had only ever caught in their most secret moments. Jimmy never seemed to be aware of himself when it happened, as if he were still lying in the Welsh sand with his soul bared up at the moon.

“S’pose not,” Jimmy agreed vaguely as he plucked the boutonniere flower off Thomas’s plate. He twirled it between his thumb and forefinger, staring into the dahlia like he was trying to divine something in the folds of petals, and then, finding nothing there, affixed it to his lapel without further comment. Thomas watched the tiny inflections of Jimmy’s long digits as they flexed and bent around the flowers, which stuttered against his jacket like they were unfurling around something unspoken in Jimmy’s demeanor.

The assortment of delectables that had been underneath the corsage suddenly caught Jimmy’s eye. He quickly relieved Thomas of the plate and plopped down on the curb to eat. Thomas sat down beside him, still puffing away on his cigarette while Jimmy stuck his wad of gum to the tarmac. As Jimmy broke his fast, Pancake came plodding over, keen to the fact that a meal had begun. He looked quite handsome in the bowtie Jimmy had fastened around his neck.

“We’ve got quite a day ahead of us, big boy,” Jimmy told the Saint Bernard as he fed him a prosciutto-wrapped piece of cantaloupe. He then licked a piece of soft cheese from his fingertips, before choosing another wedge for Thomas. He held it out to Thomas just as he had done for Pancake, expectantly waiting for Thomas to make similar work of it. “I can’t be the only person you fret about,” Jimmy insisted with an emphatic gesture that brought the cheese so close to Thomas’s lips, he could have bitten into it with the same grace as Pancake. “Big boy,” Jimmy murmured quietly as Thomas tactfully pinched the cheese between two fingers and brought it to his mouth.

Jimmy continued to distribute the food between the three of them in that fashion until they were left with a blank dish. Leaning forward to rest his chin atop his knees, Jimmy let the plate dangle from lax fingers as he stared across the street. Surreptitiously, Thomas watched Jimmy over his shoulder and lit a fresh cigarette, oddly placated by the way their reflections warped into each other upon the Pinto’s rusty frame. Jimmy’s profile couldn’t hide the severity in his contemplation, even long before he finally thought of something to say.    

“It’s really quite somethin’, innit?” he said at length, nibbling at a cuticle. His lidded stare flicked upwards at Thomas to catch icy gray, and then melted beneath lowered lashes and loosening fringe. “How people find each other in this rainy world, that is,” he clarified as he started worrying at another nail. His shapely lips molded themselves around each knuckle, tantalizing and sinful.  

Thomas arched an eyebrow and took a long pull on his cigarette, his lips poised around a silent question. Then he cut his bottom lip on his front teeth, thoughtfully regarding Jimmy with interest. “You mean like Miss Rose and her Jack?” he asked with an edge of guile as he recalled his earlier conversation with Sybil.

“Yes, right. Like Rose and Jack,” Jimmy gulped, smothering an onset of panic with a rough bite into his thumb. He yanked it away from his mouth and started toying with a leaf on his corsage instead. “Suppose one of them hadn’t looked up at just the right second? Or a shift from right to left had changed the wind or sommat?”

“But they did,” Thomas gently reminded Jimmy with a little jut of his chin. The smoke undulating from the tip of his cigarette twisted in an impossibly slow spiral. 

“Yeah. They did,” Jimmy parroted, while his hands curled around the ledge they were perched upon. His pinky grazed the side seam of Thomas’s trousers.

Something inarticulate remained between them, hidden in a cloud of cigarette smoke. As Thomas took another drag, he was struck with the irony that Jimmy might be just as afraid as he was. Normally, Thomas would have found the very suggestion laughable in the wake of his own disquiet – except that morning. When there was only an inadequate vocabulary to choose from, it dawned upon him that Jimmy had been articulating himself quite plainly for some time. His language was found in tiny gestures and subtle charms – all the secret things that only Thomas found enchanting and dear in the slow summer. It triggered a deep chuckle within his belly, which then rose in crescendo until it was at a fully pleasurable pitch. He felt buoyant and happy and free. 

The moment was disrupted by Pancake, who had become very excited in the interim. When the animal suddenly blazed back towards the house, both Thomas and Jimmy twisted around to see what had got him so wound up, and collectively hopped to attention when they realized what it was. The empty plate clattered against the tarmac in Jimmy’s haste to pop to his feet.

Floating over the front steps was Rose, effervescent and airy in her wedding gown. Faint streaks of sunny gold checkered the crème fabric as she stepped outside. The crystalline droplets that cascaded in beaded patterns over her bodice and spilled into the folds of her skirt all twinkled in the daylight. Behind her, Sybil was pulling the door closed and carefully following the bride towards the street, one hand draped with the trailing veil as it shimmered in the morning light, the finished bouquet of flowers, bound at the stem in ribbon and lace, clutched in the other. In his bowtie, Pancake skipped happily at Rose’s side like a proper little groom and delighted her with his enthusiastic barking.

“Well,” Rose said, fidgeting with eagerness as she approached Thomas and Jimmy; “Let’s to church, shall we?”

“R-Right!” stammered Jimmy, who seemed unusually anxious as he unlocked the Pinto and opened the door.

In the time it took him to bend into the car to slide the driver’s seat forward, Rose noticed the decoration on the rear window. She slapped a palm over her mouth in surprise, her eyelashes fluttering like she was trying to chase away an overwhelmed tear or two. Thomas could only stand sentinel, quietly watching as Jimmy extricated himself from the vehicle and held the door open for Rose. He imagined what it must be like to know that a journey would ferry you to a new life – one that changed a person irrevocably from who they used to be. 

As the bride clambered into the back seat with Sybil in tow, Jimmy helped gather the pluming gown and tuck it safely inside. Eagerly, Pancake followed suit and crowded into the back with the two ladies, his fat bottom hogging up almost as much of the space as Rose’s cupcake skirts. Though Sybil was packaged rather uncomfortably between the Saint Bernard and her cousin, she didn’t seem too put out by the arrangement, and instead cheered their entourage on with an offkey rendition of _Chapel of Love_.  

“ _Going to the chapel, going to get ma-arried!_ ” she sang as Thomas and Jimmy simultaneously dropped into the front seats. Two slammed doors and then the putter of the engine when Jimmy twisted the key in the ignition. Thomas glanced up into the rearview mirror as Jimmy pulled away from the curb, catching the white lettering on the glass as Sybil repeated the tune.

The church was a tiny one in the East End, near Jack’s flat. Despite the simplicity of the drive, the amount of attention the bedecked Pinto received along the way was rather surreal. Other cars beeped congratulatory songs as they passed – a far cry from the irritated honks that usually followed the Pinto – while pedestrians who got a chance to peer inside would clap and wave. With a royal little wave for all her well-wishers, Rose pressed her nose to the glass and watched London sail by, while Thomas remained stuck on the question of how a person ever got to be so lucky. He drew inwards, his focus flitting across the hands he had knotted between his knees, and then the fingers Jimmy had looped around the steering wheel.

Traffic made way for the Pinto as they approached the little chapel. Jimmy maneuvered the automobile right in front just as the noontime bells pealed through the burnished blue skies. While Thomas let himself out of the vehicle, Jimmy ushered the bridal party onto the pavement as though he were actually a footman. Thomas leaned on the roof of the Pinto as Pancake jumped out, followed by Sybil, and then Rose herself – which triggered an unexpected treble within him to see her emerge with such fairytale grace. Sparkled silver glistened upon her wide skirts as she twirled for Sybil, who was making time for one last photograph of her cousin before they went inside. Pancake reveled in the festivities, happily chasing the ruffled organza as Rose swished it back and forth across the pavement.

“Make it count!” Sybil coached Rose as she aimed her mobile phone at the bride. Thomas’s attention flickered away, inevitably landing upon Jimmy – though it thoroughly disarmed him to find that Jimmy was already staring at him with a certain unreadable fixedness.

The final bell chime broke the odd enchantment in Jimmy. He threw the Pinto’s door closed, causing the little car to quake beneath Thomas’s bent arms. Jarred from his daydream, Thomas found himself alone with the car, and had to walk double-time to catch up with Jimmy, who was already halfway up the chapel’s steps. He fell in step with Jimmy and filed into the chapel behind him.

Inside, there was hardly anyone in attendance, which struck Thomas as strange and unfair. In the front pew, Jack was chatting with the only two people on his side of the aisle, while Thomas and Jimmy slid into the second row on Rose’s. He recalled the reasons for such a small, hasty wedding, but it upset him more than he cared to admit. Sitting, he gripped the bench in front of theirs and tried not to dwell on the cruelty people could turn on love. It reminded him quite sharply why he hadn’t been to church since Edward had killed himself, or why his father’s bigotry had finally pulled the lynchpin out of his naivety. His father might have forgotten, but Thomas would not – not now or ever.

“Are you okay?” Jimmy breathed. His voice reached into Thomas and gently scooped him out of his self-loathing.

“I’m fine,” Thomas lied.

But Jimmy heard the tightness in Thomas’s voice and cuffed him hard. “Shut up,” he admonished with a crinkled lip and a disparaging glance down one cheek. “I’m not playin’.”

"I were just thinkin'," Thomas started dubiously; "About Manchester. About goin' back...." 

But then the organ had begun to play, and any further discussion on the matter was stowed for a later date. Though it was Thomas standing nearest to the aisle, Jimmy had his mobile phone out again, eager to snap another picture for his online collection. He twisted around Thomas like a small child and pointed the lens towards the back of the church just as Sybil began to walk down the aisle. Much to Jimmy’s unending amusement, she was with Pancake, who was trotting at her side like the entire event was in his honor. “Nice one, big boy,” Jimmy whispered loudly at his dog when he passed by. Pancake sat obediently at Sybil’s feet when she reached the alter, his tail thumping with joy as they waited for Rose to make her grand entrance.

The music then shifted to a John Lennon song, and the tiny congregation stood up. Jimmy had spun around again, camera at the ready as Rose glided into the church, but Thomas was caught on the adoration caught in Jack’s expression. It was the same aura that swaddled Thomas every time he was near Jimmy – one that intrinsically changed the air in Thomas’s lungs and the faith in his heart. Once, Thomas might have been pleased to be miserable, but the summer had warmed him with Jimmy’s touch.

The ceremony was simple, and moved quickly through. Thomas had difficulty keeping himself in the moment, but Jimmy was rapt. His bottom lip was rolled beneath his front teeth as he listened, murmuring automatic responses throughout the length of the liturgy. There were a hundred things Thomas wished to say to Jimmy throughout the course of it, especially as the time for wedding vows neared, but he had no idea how. He fretted that Jimmy was still in the throes of a vacationer’s fling, and that his head over feet clumsiness was his own mistake.

“Jack,” said Rose with such confidence, it quickly ripped Thomas out of his internal reveries. “Jack,” she repeated, this time taking his hand to recite her eternal devotion. Her words were personal and heartfelt, reminding Jack that he was the jazz in her step. “Some might pretend like they don’t see you, but I do,” she finished with sincerity, pushing a gold band onto his finger; “And I hope to see you a little more every day.”

Thomas swallowed a mouthful of emotion, scared to even glance in Jimmy’s direction lest he give himself away. Instead, he returned his focus to the happy couple just in time to see Jack gather Rose into his arms. Joyfulness then filled the chapel as Jack dipped Rose into their first wedded kiss, and Jimmy slipped his hand into Thomas’s.

Thomas floated.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long for this chapter -- which I feel like I've been saying a lot lately. This last term at school was practically a soap opera with all the crazy things that happened at once. Hopefully that won't be the case going forward! (Or at least more in moderation!) 
> 
> The song Sybil is singing and which is now decorating the Pinto is 'Chapel of Love' by the Beach Boys. The chapter title is the same John Lennon song I imagine Rose walking down the aisle to :) 
> 
> Thanks for reading, though. I hope the story is still entertaining to all of you, because it officially has no brakes.


	17. At My Most Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas makes a hard decision.

 

In the aftermath of Rose’s wedding, Thomas went to call on Mathew again. The article that he’d found in the paper about his missing status had apparently made its way to Mathew’s desk as well, and he’d called on Sybil to make sure that he spoke with Thomas as soon as possible. In the late afternoon, Thomas had made his way back downtown via the Underground to meet the solicitor, both anticipating and dreading their conversation all at once. Jimmy had needled him to tag along, but Thomas managed to slip out on his own. He was still nervous about spoiling Jimmy with all the gory details of his past.

“It was one thing when you were assumed to be a missing victim,” Mathew had said over wine which he drank and Thomas examined. They were sitting in an Italian restaurant near Mathew’s office, though Thomas was too antsy to enjoy a proper meal the longer he listened to the other man. Thomas crumbled a crust of the complimentary bread into a dish, while Mathew twirled his fork through a small plate of linguini. The stench of garlic was more cloying than even the toast of nicotine upon Thomas’s clothing.

“But regardless of circumstance,” Mathew went on, “any prolonged and willful absence from the scenario will likely turn on you – especially since most of the evidence that might protect you leans towards the circumstantial.”

For Thomas, it was strange to even conceive himself as a victim in any of it, though he supposed he understood what Mathew was trying to convey. He traced the rim of his wine glass, which was too thick to make a crystalline bell out of, and peered into the stagnant burgundy. “Well, the only person who knows the size of it is me mate, Tom,” Thomas mumbled; “And he won’t betray me – I’m certain of at least that much.”

“Perhaps,” Mathew agreed soberly, “but there’s more at work than just the word of a neighbor.”

Thomas was silent for a beat, lifting his stare to bore straight through Mathew’s forehead. “How’s that?” he eventually asked in a wavering tone. A leaden stone plunked into the pit of his belly, bringing with it a swell of misery.

“Well, you know….” Mathew trailed off, momentarily distracted by his mobile, which he removed from a waistcoat pocket. He fussed with the screen, which illuminated his icy blue eyes and painted his cheeks a cybernetic white, and then flipped it round for Thomas to see. “I only found this because Sybil is practically family,” he explained as Thomas squinted into the light.

Glowing there for anyone to see was Sybil’s Instagram account, and, in particular, the photograph she’d taken of Thomas, Jimmy, Pancake and herself on that Welsh pier so long ago. A certain vulnerability seemed hauntingly apparent in the pixilated rendition of Thomas’s face. He wondered if he still gave off the same impression on the other side of their exodus. Silently, he wished to know what Jimmy saw when he looked at these older pictures – if he even did so at all.

“But if I can find it,” came Mathew’s distant voice, “it’s just as easy for anyone else in the world to. Including the Manchester police.”

It took a few seconds for the gravitas of Mathew’s words to truly sink in, but once it did, Thomas was suddenly aflame with paranoia. He gripped the edge of the table, his jaw hinged tightly shut as he pushed himself away from the terrifying precipice. He had long since assumed he’d have to make his way back to Manchester in due time, and had in fact been trying to figure out how to do so without losing Jimmy in the process. But with Mathew’s rather sobering revelation, Thomas realized he did not have the luxury of time.

“It were a fool thing to do,” Thomas frowned. “Leavin’ home, that is.”

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” Mathew admonished as he refilled his glass with merlot. He replaced the towel-wrapped bottle in the middle of the table and then picked his glass up by the stem, swirling the liquid inside before bringing it to his lips. “You were abused – no two ways about that,” he consoled gently, reaching across the table with the intent to cover Thomas’s hand, though Thomas had them locked up tight in fists that clutched a knotted napkin. Mathew retracted his hand awkwardly and cleared his throat: “And you were frightened and at the end of your rope. Don’t forget that, either.”

Pursing his lips, Thomas reluctantly reached for his own wine for a long, heady sip, and questioned whether or not he actually could.

\--

Thomas returned to the house in a strange mood. There was a tantalizing breeze rattling outside the house where Jimmy’s father had once lived. High over the rooftops, it whistled over the chimney tops and through Thomas’s bones as he toed the cracks in the pavement and walked beneath the dying embers of the evening sun. The sinking color singed the underside of the stratum and the flecks in Thomas’s clear irises as he contemplated the Manchester that hid beyond the jagged horizon, while the empty patch of tarmac where Jimmy usually parked the Pinto ate into the scenery, overexposed in the chemical gloaming like a fizzled memory. He’d been brave to climb into the Pinto with Jimmy with only a mouthful of hope, but it would take even more courage to redirect his course back to the place that had begun it all – and the most to think that he might have to go all that way with Jimmy in his rearview.

He crept quietly inside, which was devoid of life except for the lit window above the front door – the one that peeked into Jimmy’s bedroom. It was uncanny how Thomas had never noticed how his voice reverberated through the house until he was there alone. A dim resonance accompanied him as he ventured into the front room in search of the others, though he was greeted only by solitude as he passed by the stairs and into the parlor.

There, the sofa folded back into its true shape, a stack of folded blankets and pillows left in place of Sybil’s familiar luggage. Crowning the bedding was a folded paper that bore Thomas’s name in pencil. It appeared almost picturesque in the soft gold that filtered between the parted drapes, which made Thomas reluctant to disturb it. A part of him was certain that his filthy hands had no place upon something that Sybil had crafted, and he fidgeted for a cigarette while hemming and hawing over his fictional morals until it wore him out.

Eventually, he made himself sit. He took up the paper and opened it, worrying the unlit cigarette between his lips as he started to read. It seemed that while Thomas had been out with Mathew, Sybil had skipped off with Rose to help her settle in with Jack, and that she had hoped she’d a chance to say goodbye ever so much. With her usual style and sweetness, she wished Thomas well, and insisted that the precious seconds she had spent in his company had impressed upon her life irrevocably. _‘I know your journey is still in progress,’_ she wrote as a final word; “ _But I do hope you’ll remember the three of us together on the pier, hands in hands as we stepped out into the endless sky for the first time. Oh, what it meant to be a horde of travelers alone against the sea!’_

It ended with her bubbly signature, which Thomas couldn’t look at for very long. With hollow emotions that felt as though they were missing, Thomas flicked his attention upwards and glanced around again. The rest of the parlor had been cleared of all the merry ribbons and trimmings of wedding bliss, returned to its original sterility without Sybil or Rose there to occupy it. As Thomas sunk into the couch to watch the melting sun through the window, he let out a sigh which echoed in the deserted room. Something about losing Sybil made him sad, especially when he considered he narrowly missed his last chance to say goodbye to her.

_Prob’ly better in the end – slippin’ away on me owns_ , Thomas tried to justify to himself as he stared back through the window, forlornly trying to picture the Pinto returned to the curb and Jimmy back from whatever afternoon distraction had kidnapped him. A vague jealousy haunted him as he imagined Jimmy and Sybil off together, perhaps spending one last afternoon in merriment before life’s duties separated them. Thomas had scuttled out in too much haste that morning to have attached himself to such an excursion, far too mired in his own insecurities to consider that he might have run out on the breaking of their fellowship. He’d set himself up for such a disappointment – as usual. He had the cheek to say that at least his loneliness was his own fine craft.  

These were the times that Thomas knew to hang onto his heart. He’d have to bury the little touches Jimmy had left him since Rose’s wedding, afraid to let them mean all the sweet nothings he wished for. Thomas wouldn’t have Jimmy trade his freedom and joy for the foolish life he had led. He wanted to always know that somewhere in England, there was a busted Pinto with a carefree young man behind the wheel, who ran over the same old ground like he was going to fly away one day. Some day….

He beat the sentimentality out of his bones quickly, though: _Best get back to the way you’re used to things_ , he sharply admonished himself with a sneer. Then he turned his attention back to the sunset, reminding himself that he ought enjoy these last moments of escape – before the new day brought with it his Mersey cuffs and chains. Lined up on the edge, the moment had come for him to detach himself from Jimmy’s hip. He’d waited so long for someone exciting like Jimmy to jump out at him, but he hadn’t realized that his wish would come at such a tumultuous, uncontrollable tilt. He ought to just take the criticism for breaking his own heart and have done with it. There was no longer time to waste on fermented luck.

The effect was palpable, and Thomas easily envisioned the cast of Jimmy’s disappointment without even needing to look. He removed the unlit cigarette from his lips and crushed the misshapen roll of tobacco behind one ear as he frowned. Breathing in uneven measures, like he was counting out the beat of a waltz, he could taste the pain. Then he fell apart.

Suddenly on his toes, Thomas danced nervously towards his cricket bat, which he had not thought to touch while the distractions of happiness had been thick and permeant in the house. He’d taken Jimmy like a drug, but the ceaseless stench of reality had cut through the aphrodisiac. Now, Thomas was back at the top of the circle and still grasping at the threads of temptation. He bent to grip the bat’s handle, disproportionately at home with its worn shape. This was a thing he was familiar with – something less dangerous in his ability to understand it. His swinging arm felt invigorated, his adrenaline ticking sharply upwards. The bit of him that still quaked for Jimmy also yearned to protect him – an instinct that manifested within Thomas as an inside-out desire to escape.

A misting rain lacerated his flesh as he burst outside once more, this time armed with only his bat and his ambition. Little by little, the sun had abandoned him, replaced by the buzz of electric bulbs and a packet of stars. He’d find a route back to Manchester immediately – straight away, while his feet still had the nerve to run. He hardly missed his case, which he had forgotten on the floor of Jimmy’s bedroom, and would only yield space for his untied dreams anyway. There was no way Thomas would allow Jimmy to end up packed in a coffin for hanging off of the wrong lips for too long – of that, Thomas was absolutely certain. Visions of Edward intercut any reiteration of Jimmy in Thomas’s thoughts, blackened further by the uglier parts of his mind.

The darkness had transfigured the tough London neighborhood into another animal entirely. Before long, Thomas had become more turned about and lost than found, but it wasn’t particularly apparent to him as he flew through the night. Half mad with his desire to absolve himself, he darted into a road and nearly crunched his skull against the tarmac when an oncoming Cortina swerved to avoid him. The horn blared wildly against Thomas’s rising yell, which was raw and formless as the soul that shot through his teeth. The twin tail lights of the car drew angry streaks in the drizzle, which Thomas chased for a few mad, lucid moments, his bat clutched in hand like a broadsword. He ran off kilter and back onto the pavement, just barely avoiding a collision with a lamppost by grabbing it with a hooked arm and swinging all his weight around it.

“I’m just a bloody blight, innit!” he screamed up at the raindrops burnished in the urban luminance. The water fell like dots of starlight as he repeated himself even more passionately: “Oy! You hear me, up there? I’ll take the brunt of it! I’ll take it!”  

His unsentimental god answered with only a cleansing rain, while Thomas continued to demand brimstone.

Stricken by the plague of his guilt, Thomas slid down the post until he hit the curb, unable to discern the mist from his sadness. In the end, he hadn’t been saved or even pardoned. Thomas closed his eyes, squinting his vision into the distant memories of winding roads traversed with the Pinto’s windows rolled down. How the wind in his face had changed him! The man he’d glimpsed in the windscreen had been in love with the world, unfolded, unfolding and unfolding the parceled bits of himself that had never yet been stripped naked.

“I’m ready,” Thomas murmured into the night, touching his forehead to the red pommel of his cricket bat as if to bend his head in prayer. He then reached for the cigarette that he still wore behind his ear. Haloed in the vaporous twinkle of the lamppost, he placed the fag between his lips and flared it up. Across the road, he could just make out a garden of silver-rimmed roses against a brick wall. As he smoked, he counted the petals he could discern and contemplated his walk back to Gethsemane. Around him, the city paused in reverence. Thomas let the quiet overwhelm him, seeking comfort in his isolation.

But in his holy solitude, the sign he received was different penance than he’d expected. Growing in crescendo beneath the beads of rain tapping their soft music into the pavement was the barking of a dog. The boisterous sound easily distracted Thomas from his _mea culpa_ , at once igniting a memory of Jimmy and Pancake in their matching mackintoshes as they faded in and out of the graying weather. _But that was on another roadside – in another life_ , Thomas vehemently reminded himself even as he lifted his chin with hope. The barking rang with such a familiar timbre, it was nearly impossible for him to stop wishing he’d be found – a prodigal son returned home at last.

There was mercy in the air that night. No sooner had Thomas offered up his most desperate plea did he find deliverance. From around the corner bedraggled in roses came none other than Pancake, loping eagerly towards Thomas like he’d been chasing his scent all the way across town. Droplets must have got into Thomas’s eyes as the Saint neared, for the picture of the approaching dog was bleary and wet. He’d never been so happy to know Pancake, even when the animal’s thick slobber cut through the rain and gummed his cheek. Pancake hurled himself at Thomas, pressing his weight against him like he was trying to bolster Thomas to the ground. In Thomas’s periphery, a saving figure cut through the gloom. The clatter of skateboard wheels against asphalt offset the lilt of Jimmy’s voice, which was hurried with concern as it drew nearer.

The silence rushed away from Thomas as he was suddenly enveloped in a tangle of arms. As if the torn little bits of himself had been plucked off the wind and gathered back together, Thomas felt himself slowly reawaken against Jimmy’s chest. His lungs sputtered with cough as Jimmy pounded his back in frustration, the force of his hand a far more poignant proclamation than any of the slurred gibberish he planted in Thomas’s slick hair.

Then Jimmy pushed down on Thomas’s shoulders and leaned back to reveal his disparate countenance. His face was bruised with anger, though he was still beautiful to Thomas even with such a twist in his expression. “Fuck you, Thomas,” Jimmy hurled at him with passion, flinging another hard punch against Thomas as he spoke. “Fuck you, fuck you – just _fuck you_ , goddammit!”

Thomas blinked away more raindrops, unsure how drizzle could cloud his eyes so much, and gasped for air. “What’ve _I_ done?” he heaved breathlessly.

Rocking back on his haunches, Jimmy merely stared at him. “You can’t be serious,” he capitulated after a time, his fingers automatically seeking refuge in Pancake’s fur.

“I am,” Thomas frowned. Another cigarette manifested itself between his creased lips, which he kindled with a quick flip of his lighter and a gulp. He pinched the filter between two knuckles and pulled it away. “The smoke’s cleared and me lot still hasn’t changed. I’ve sinned and that’s how I’m meant to die,” he plainly informed Jimmy; “Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam and all that.”

Jimmy pushed him.

“Yeah, but _I_ do,” he emphasized to Thomas unapologetically. He grasped a wad of Thomas’s jacket, which was the same one he’d worn to Rose’s wedding and was still adorned with its drooping corsage. The cluster of flowers came free of Thomas’s lapel with the rip of a seam: “You’re somebody to _me_ ,” Jimmy insisted, his fist tightening around the boutonniere. 

Another protective surge rose through Thomas, his nerves thorny with the same passion that had chased Thomas to the streets in the first place. “You can’t rescue me, Jimmy!” he cried even as his mind traversed journey they’d shared. No verbal wit spoke as acutely as his heart spoke through all those miles in Jimmy’s company. He puffed tirelessly on his cigarette like the nicotine was fueling his defenses, adding with ill-begot haste, “Don’t tie yourself to a tragedy like me, right?”

The pits of Jimmy’s eyes smoldered holes through Thomas in the pregnant silence before he flung the corsage at Thomas, which nicked his face with a stem as it sliced by. Unimpressed, he scowled, “Are you quite through yet?”

The declaration was a stunning one to Thomas. He nearly fumbled his cigarette as he narrowed his eyes at Jimmy, who was behaving with such little guile, it was almost just as duplicitous. In a moment of desperation, Thomas looked to Pancake, whose ears were level with Jimmy’s as they crouched beside one another in the road, but the dog only met him with his drool-heavy tongue and furrowed brow. Thomas flattened the end of his cigarette as he took another drag, murmuring through the smokescreen. “I was scared,” he admitted. “I came back to that blasted house to find no one there, and was just so terribly _scared_ of what I’d do when you really did leave, I just – I thought I’d just save us all the trouble.” The excuse sounded so idiotic when it was put forth like that, but at least it was true.  

There was something pensive about the anger scrawled across Jimmy’s face, like it tired him to even exercise the words. “You know what I were gettin’ into today? Whilst you were off feelin’ oh-so-sorry for yourself?” Jimmy huffed, displaying, for the first time, a passionate side of himself that advanced beyond the frivolous airs and pomp he usually trotted out. He puffed his chest and slammed the back of his fist into his ribcage like it was a pendulum upon his heart. “I was in Wandsworth – out to see me dad like I’d meant to,” he began, plopping down onto the wet tarmac without a care for the seat of his pants. “He’s always the same, but I go anyway – ‘cos he’s not a liar like me mum. Whenever I ask him what I ought to do about somethin’, he always tells me, ‘Whatever’s the most fun.’ And I do – whatever I like, I _do_ , and nevermind what else.

“I’ve liked it like that,” Jimmy continued quite seriously even as Thomas stared at him, agape; “Made it hurt less when it came to stuff like Alfred and Ivy and her ruddy brother. I’d kiss ‘em all, chuck ‘em out to change the scenery, and then laugh at the way they’d run rings round each other to catch me again. Dad were always full of advice on that score. It made me grow up clever – just like him.”

There was no need to haul up the reminder that Jimmy’s father was serving time for peddling heroin; Thomas was more entranced by the honesty drudged up in that London gutter. No one had ever exposed himself so rudimentarily to him – not even Edward – and it bewitched him. He forgot the cigarette he held until it burned so low, a hot cluster of ash singed his knuckle.

Jimmy rounded out his tale: “And then, one day, I were on the road, pissed off at the whole world – as usual – when I came across someone sent from heaven just for me. Someone who made me stop wantin’ to be a hundred other people besides meself. And I wondered for the first time if I’d been mistaken to think that way – if it were just some idiocy in me own brain that always made me choose the one thing that were always the most wrong. Because when I’m with you….” Jimmy licked his lips, waiting, and then –

“When I’m with you, I can _feel_.”

Here, he impaled Thomas with so significant a stare, it clawed through Thomas’s doubts like he’d come tearing through curtains with a scissors, grasping hands and flailing feet.

At this, Thomas’s jerked his chin upwards, completely disarmed by such an adamant claim from the blond. “Don’t be daft,” Thomas tutted, noting how Jimmy’s fingers clenched Pancake’s fur more tightly. Despite the poignancy, Thomas refused to allow Jimmy’s grandstanding to blind him from sense. “The more the fool, you. I’m not just out to avoid jealous lovers, y’know. I’m set to hang.”

“I’d vouch for you,” Jimmy insisted, not about to be deterred. “I’ll lie.”

“I won’t have do that for me, Jimmy. Absolutely not,” Thomas bristled enough to make Pancake stir. The dog let out a low growl, unhappy with the sharp tongue Thomas was directing at Jimmy.

“Then what the hell was the goddamn point of any of it?” Jimmy snapped, incensed in a way Thomas wasn’t sure he recognized. His flesh pulled angrily around his bones, a throbbing ridge from jaw to collar as he yelled. “You go march halfway round the world to change your lot and then go runnin’ back empty fisted anyway, then what the hell was the _bloody_ point?” Jimmy’s mood flipped fast, rife with confused chemicals and crossed wires. “First Sybil, and now you? Off to just vanish into the horizon, is it? Like it never even happened?”

“Fade in, fade out, that were always goin’ to be the way,” Thomas mourned as he took in Jimmy’s blustered cheeks and hollowed eyes. With unnecessary gusto, he pitched his cigarette, a red star blazing through the damp air. He banged the cricket bat against his shin, shouting, “I’m a bad card, and you know it! You knew it the moment you let me into your bloody car!”

“But don’t you understand? You’re mine!” Jimmy protested, throwing his fists from shoulder to thigh in a fit of unhappiness. A petulant foot kicked at the street, which hit the tarmac like a summoning clap for Pancake. The dog hurried more tightly to Jimmy’s side, and Jimmy, desperate for consolation, was quick to welcome the dog into open arms. “You’re mine,” he sniveled into Pancake’s fur; “You were mine.”

From his vantage, all Thomas could see of Jimmy was the pair of hands that wrapped round Pancake’s enormous bulk. Thomas was taken aback, completely stunned by such a profound admission from one as proud as Jimmy. With his outlaw’s heart, Thomas had been sure he’d be laid out, arms crossed and dead, before he’d know another heart as errant as his. But there, in the misty darkness, he could hear a small pulse.

Carefully, Thomas reached for Jimmy. As he tugged at Jimmy’s hands, quietly pleading with him to look up.

“I found you – so I get to keep you,” Jimmy was railing, his nose still buried in Pancake’s fur even as his fingers danced awkwardly around Thomas’s knuckles. He pulled at Thomas’s hand with his own urgency, his thumb pressed into the hollow of Thomas’s wrist like he meant to keep the universe from escaping the knot of veins that quivered beneath the pale flesh.

In the silence, Thomas dithered with the fear that he’d still managed to do Jimmy harm somehow – a web he’d spun out of his own pitfalls and yarns. But then the moonlight caught a glimmer of bright blue iris as Jimmy lifted his chin, and the Welsh sea breeze reinvented itself in his ear. “Is that what I deserve?” Thomas whispered as if the death of any dramatic irony was more of a twist than such serenity.

“Now you’re the one bein’ daft,” Jimmy derided with a fist that clenched more tightly around Thomas’s forearm. He let go of Pancake in order to push his way into Thomas’s personal atmosphere. His other hand planted itself firmly atop one of Thomas’s knees so that he might hoist himself close enough that their foreheads touched. “ _We_ deserve it,” he emphasized, squeezing Thomas’s wrist again; “We deserve each other.”

The heat of Jimmy’s breath rolling across lips haunted by his kiss filled Thomas with an ambition so surmounting, he nearly bowled them both over when he pressed their mouths together. He hardly noticed the damp pavement or how it abrasive it was against his skin in his urgency to shift onto his knees and scoop Jimmy into his arms. In his mind, Jimmy was sprawled in the tide beneath a vault of star jewels, sons of a moonlit night and alone in the world with no one but one another once more. If the smog overhead could have been a hundred constellations and the dirty tarmac beneath them a bed of wet sand, Thomas might have returned to the exact moment he’d first fallen for Jimmy. A hand clutched at Jimmy’s shoulder, a featherlight grazing of fingertips against thin fabric that easily crinkled at the disturbance.

“What was _that_?” Jimmy breathed when Thomas finally released him. There was something changed about them, though only Pancake seemed to understand what it was. The enormous dog had ducked his head down between his front paws, crouched like he was trying to make himself scarce.

Whatever explanation Thomas had came out choked, like a dying gasp. His hands were still curled around Jimmy’s shape, though his panting breath kept his focus on the ground between them. His charred cigarette butts, a few pebbles and a crushed candy wrapper littered the space, but Thomas was blind to it, driven by a strangled libido that had just reared its untethered head for the first time. It was painful how badly Thomas wanted Jimmy right then, his tempted fingers making advances on Jimmy’s snaps and buttons like the London fog would be enough to shroud his desires. It was so much, he could barely stand it.

“My most beautiful,” murmured Thomas, who fell easily beneath Jimmy’s wresting grip. His eyelashes fluttered and another strong breath filled him: “I love you,” he finally had the gumption to say, though the words left him spellbound as they passed his lips. The phrase was one he’d never before been inspired to tell anyone of his own accord, far too terrified to so plainly expose the secrets of his poor heart. But when he said it to Jimmy, it came out naturally – deep and musical as twittering larks. It made him wish to say it again and again – and he did, leaning in to kiss Jimmy just as many times. He forgot himself quickly, his questing touch falling right back into its old rhythm.

“Hey, hey – steady on,” Jimmy chided as he tried to scoot away before he inherited the same lustful spirit. He wrangled himself from Thomas’s arms, groping for the skateboard he’d bailed on when he’d first arrived. He picked it up and stood, dropping it at his feet so that he could press its tail beneath the ball of one foot, a hand on each hip as he waited for Thomas to get up as well.

“You can save all _that_ for the back seat,” he added, letting the skateboard’s front wheels hit the ground with a definitive clack. “If we’re to make Manchester any time soon, we’ll have to go get the car first.” 

A blessed smile touched Thomas’s lips in the mist.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little transitional chapter. I'm sorry it's a bit short, but I promise things are finally starting to wrap up. I'll have more in a timely fashion if I'm lucky! In the meantime, hope this was satisfactory :) 
> 
> Chapter title is an REM song, which Thomas also references along the way.


	18. Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang is back on the road again.

 

With their lives packed so easily into cases, they were underway almost immediately. Despite the energy Thomas had displayed in the small hours, fifteen minutes in the Pinto had rocked him into a slumber so deep that he completely missed the sunrise. Jimmy in the moonlight faded into the Jimmy of his dreams – who made love to him fearlessly until the disorienting sun demanded Thomas’s attention once more. Morning light slit through tired eyes, and was quickly made cheerful by the way it highlighted Jimmy’s lackadaisical position behind the wheel. Thomas shimmied up in his seat, groggy with the sleep he was so unused to as he took the new day in. Behind him, Pancake’s familiar panting settled into the nook of Thomas’s ear, while out on the road ahead, there was only potential. Jimmy ate up the miles with gusto, zooming above the suggested speed limit with little regard for anything but their unbridled freedom; his far hand hung outside the Pinto, bouncing upon the air current as the radio fuzzed in and out of reception. Though Thomas still missed Sybil’s company terribly, there was something invigorating about being alone with Jimmy again. Brave and forward fingers crept across the Pinto to rest atop Jimmy’s inside knee – a secret little game of proximity in Thomas’s mind. They were orphans on the road once more, but no longer aimless and wandering.

He was just about to touch Jimmy’s thigh when the sudden bleating of a car horn sent his fingers scurrying. Jimmy swerved in surprise, while Thomas twisted round in his seat to glower at the impatient car through the rear window. “Cheeky,” Thomas grimaced, peering through the painted lettering that still adorned the glass; “You’re already drivin’ fast enough to launch us straight at the moon.”

“I’d certainly take a holiday up there,” Jimmy sneered at his side mirror. The needle on his speedometer began to tick upwards, counting the increments of Jimmy’s recklessness, while Jimmy added, “Finally get to see some real stars and that.”

In the back, Pancake was kneading the seat with his front paws, agitated. His great size made it impossible for him to turn around properly, which left him only room enough to squirm from one side to the other. His yips were nervous, like he was trying to tell Jimmy to cool off, but they went largely unheard. The car lilted awkwardly as Jimmy jerked the wheel against the flow of traffic, a maneuver made even more upsetting by the fact that the car was oriented for the other side of the road. Thomas grabbed onto the strap above his head and shut his eyes, though doing only made him more aware of his churning gut.  He grasped the empty air with his other hand, wishing desperately that his cricket bat hadn’t been laid in the boot with their luggage; he could hear it clunking against the Pinto’s hull with the roll of gravity. Pancake howled his discontent.

“Jesus, Jimmy!” Thomas swore, crossing himself with an invisible gesture. They’d made it safely to the next lane, and Jimmy was decelerating so that they might ride side-by-side with the other car. Thomas could sense the rising attitude in Jimmy, who was pulling the steering wheel with one hand so that the other would be free to hang out the window in an irreverent pose.

The other car, which was a family vehicle that came equipped with two parents and two teenagers, was soon riding evenly with the Pinto. Eagerly, Thomas leaned forward so that he might see their faces when Jimmy gave them a taste of his mood – except that Jimmy’s arm had gone limp, hanging uselessly outside the Pinto as the other car pulled ahead with another series of beeps. As it did so, Thomas was just able to make out a piece of notebook paper pressed against the inside of the backseat window. A giant ‘ _CONGRATS!’_ had been scrawled across the page by a grinning girl. She waved in an excited frenzy as her car sped onwards with another happy bleat of the horn.

“What madness was that?” Thomas wondered with a furrowed eyebrow. Jimmy was curiously unperturbed, and had even slowed to a more thoughtful pace.   

“Y’know it’s not rained so hard lately,” Jimmy commented mysteriously. He glanced up into his rearview mirror again, which earned him a bark from Pancake. “Not enough to constitute a real wash, anyway.”

“So?” Thomas intoned, unsure what Jimmy was getting at. He craned his neck over his shoulder, trying to gather the same point.

Jimmy opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut off by another sailing car horn. This one wasn’t quite as musical as the last car, but it still carried the same spirit of fanfare as it passed by. Jimmy took the time to lean over and stick his hand out the window, acknowledging the retreating BMW with a flourish of his wrist. As his hair flew off his forehead in the current, Jimmy allowed himself a few harrowing seconds to close his eyes while the joyful air whipped by. A beautiful grin was in full bloom upon his lips.

When a third car sounded off for the Pinto, this time darting around them on Thomas’s side, Thomas took his turn to lean out into the curious wind. Another hand was extended from the passing vehicle, a fist scrunching open and closed like a blinkering bulb. Thomas had to squint as Jimmy hit the accelerator and chased after the vehicle, acknowledging it with a few honks and a laugh of his own. Thomas pulled himself back into the Pinto, wondering if the whole world had gone insane while he’d slept. He glanced back at Pancake, his last bastion of hope, but the dog only had a mouthful of drool for him. “You’re useless,” he told Pancake, though Pancake didn’t seem particularly offended by it.

Being crunched around as he was did him another turn. Behind Pancake’s hulking shape, Thomas was reintroduced to the nuptial message Jimmy had painted on the back window for Rose. As another car delivered another laudatory chorus, it finally dawned upon Thomas why the whole A40 seemed flustered with celebration. His ears cindered, spreading through his cheeks and down to the tip of his nose. To his left, Jimmy was leaning out of his window again, this time flinging an excited fist back and forth as he whooped and hollered his satisfaction. Thomas fought the instinct to haul Jimmy in by the collar as the Pinto lurched up a slope and around a bend; the whole lot of them rolled in the opposite direction, heralded by the rumble of their cases in the boot.

“Don’t let it go to your head!” Thomas admonished, still boiled red. A symphony of car horns had risen up around them, festooning the highway with such joy, Thomas had to sink low in his seat, mortified. Pancake was getting excitable the longer it went on, while Jimmy burst out into laughter each time a new car paid them tribute. He cranked the radio to full blast, paving right over Thomas’s flustered protests.

It was easy for Thomas to forget his initial terror the longer he watched Jimmy, unspooled and lovely in the fresh morning. Jimmy had started blaring the Pinto’s horn in reply to every bit of adulation they got. He wriggled in his seat, jostling the Pinto as his foot eased up on the accelerator and then stamped back onto it with fervor. There was absolute delight in everything about Jimmy just then, a vibrancy which made him glow – and which made Thomas stir. It was a romantic boy’s dream come true, crashing through him with an overboard sort of ecstasy. The light touched Jimmy’s face just so, reminding Thomas of the way Jimmy looked when he wore nothing, nothing, nothing – nothing but the yoke of Thomas’s arms and the heat between them. Thomas had to close his eyes as a steadying breath filled him, though it only made the colors of his imagination that much more rich.

A disruptive blare that held its whining, elongated note cut through Thomas’s skull. He peeled his eyelids open in time to see Jimmy’s long fingers groping after the stereo, shouting something indistinguishable out the window as the Pinto hovered beside an Audi convertible in the next lane. “What did you say to me?” Jimmy yelled with a volume that replaced the quieted music.

“Fucking nancies!” retorted the man behind the Audi’s wheel, which was nearest Jimmy’s side of the Pinto. The other man in the convertible threw something at them, which exploded against the windscreen in a brown, fizzy splatter that even the wipers had trouble scraping off the glass. The two men in the Audi burst into cruel laughter before speeding onwards, leaving Jimmy to sail haphazardly across the motorway so that he could tend to the slop obscuring his view. It was a rude awakening, quick to tear the zip out of Jimmy’s socket. The blond muttered indecipherably to himself as he eased off the A40, while Thomas stared blankly out his window. A nip of his practiced horror had started to germinate inside his chest, a sticky reminder of the world that had pushed and shoved him around his whole life.

_There’s no escape_ , he reminded himself as Jimmy cut the Pinto’s engine. He tried to toy with the cross that had been left behind in a forgotten drawer, aching desperately for some kind of regulatory habit. He went almost instantly in search of his cigarettes, which were now in frustratingly short supply. Kicking the door open, he got out of the Pinto and hurried around the car to the safety of the mossy knoll just off the tarmac. He plugged his lips with a fresh fag, lit it and puffed away at his anxiety.

Nearby, Jimmy theatrically fell out of the Pinto. He landed on all fours, gasping like he was on his last breath, before staggering to his feet with a screech in his throat. His volume ratcheted sharply upwards as he whirled around and stormed down the edge of the motorway, his arms swinging with mad fervor. His steps became jagged the further he got, his yells far more primal, until he stumbled to a halt. He chipped a hunk of earth into the air with the switch of one foot and then pounded his heels into that same ground again and again with the spring in his thighs. “Come back an’ say it to me face, you gobshites!” he screamed down the line, though the Audi had long since vanished into the haze. “Say it to me bloody face!”

Thomas left Jimmy to his ranting. He took a few steps back on feet angled upon the gentle slope bordering the roadside. Cars and lorries continued to fly along the highway, ignorant of the Pinto or its blustery driver, who was now flipping the bird at random motorists for his own pleasure. Meanwhile, Thomas furthered himself from the Pinto in the opposite direction – far enough so that he could stare at the words on the back window. While Jimmy was busy being consumed by his passion, Thomas took the moment to stare at the situation objectively. To him, it was merely curious that something that was so joyful could also be the root of such hatefulness. Perhaps – Thomas wondered – just as cricket had once been his greatest pride, it was also his greatest shame; or just as Jimmy could be his greatest pleasure, he was also his greatest fear. He was left thinking only of his father, whom he hated so much, he wished him dead, and yet – as they loitered on the road to Manchester, barely begun on their exodus home – Thomas was terrified that he would be. Cigarette crooked over his bottom lip, Thomas stared down at his palms, flexing his joints ever so slightly, and tried to understand the mechanics of such dichotomy: the vigor that had struck down his father was the same that handled Jimmy with such tenderness. _Or is it the other way round?_ Thomas tried to ascertain as his fingers continued to twitch. _Is it tenderness for another lad which turned me foul?_

A clump of ash dropped onto his wrist startled him out of his stupor. A strange shiver rattled him back to sense, pinching at his cigarette just as it was starting to burn out. A series of quick pulls rejuvenated the spark, and he lingered on what small portion was left of it while he tried to answer his own impossible questions. As he did so, Pancake, who had managed to squirm out of the back and through the open driver’s door, came prancing up to Thomas. He stuffed his muzzle with intent curiosity against Thomas’s legs, trying to sniff out the trouble with canine expertise. The unyielding wetness of the Saint’s mouth bled into Thomas’s trouser leg, demanding Thomas’s attention through neurosis.

Thomas stared down at the animal. Though he’d seen Jimmy interact with Pancake countless times, how Thomas ought to respond to any attention from the dog was an ongoing source of befuddlement. He was slightly unnerved by Pancake’s new concern for him, which seemed altogether unnatural and strange. It was only with rusty, calculated movements that Thomas was struck with the idea to try touching the crest between Pancake’s flopping ears. He was rewarded with a satisfied growl from Pancake, who promptly sat down and nuzzled Thomas for more. Thomas, meanwhile, was surprised by how soothing the velvety fur was against his skin, and had trouble separating himself from the dog once he’d got started.

“S’pose you have your merits,” Thomas admitted under his breath as he bent at the knee to scratch under Pancake’s chin. Quickly, he was extinguishing his cigarette so that his left hand could join his right in the soft fur. Pancake forwardly pressed himself into Thomas’s cupped palms, a weight which made Thomas collapse onto his bottom. Pancake charged ahead with a friendly lick, which Thomas – who was still impressing himself with new feats – welcomed with open arms. Then Pancake’s paws were straddling Thomas’s lap, and Thomas’s temple was pressed against the dog’s creamy coat, his nails making striations through the sienna spot that colored Pancake’s back. He gazed at the Pinto’s rear window and its happy message, and then hugged Pancake as tightly as he dared.    

Further off, Jimmy had thrown himself onto the grass, lying on his back with a forearm flung over the hollows of his eyes. It was hard to tell if he was stewing, weeping, or both, but Thomas didn’t think it was prudent to disturb him. Rather, Thomas had been inspired by the slobber caked to his shirt, soaked enough that the fabric had stuck to Thomas’s flesh. Unwinding himself from Pancake, Thomas stood and stalked towards the Pinto with a mission. He unbuttoned the placket of his shirt as he strode up to the vehicle, wrangling the wet garment into one hand by the time he’d neared the bumper. The display was curious enough that Pancake thought he should follow at Thomas’s heels, watching with fascination as Thomas, bare-chested in the rising heat, pressed the slobbery shirt against the Pinto’s glass and dragged it across the decorative words. The paint immediately smeared beneath the makeshift rag. Galvanized by the success of his experiment, Thomas scrubbed harder at the damning message.

“I won’t be the reason he’s hurt,” Thomas explained to Pancake as he flexed a bicep and leaned into the car. The Pinto rocked on its suspension as Thomas worked.

He’d just managed to erase Jimmy’s ornamental bells and flowers, plus a few letters, when a sudden, sharp shock to the hand intruded upon his progress. Yelping in pain, Thomas fumbled the shirt and leapt away from the Pinto in surprise, nursing his bruised knuckles as he processed the interruption. A quickening in the depth of his stomach took hold when his focus honed in upon Jimmy, who had just come flying around the Pinto with a disruptive whack.

“Don’t you dare,” Jimmy said in a warning tone, like he was scolding Thomas for one of his dark moods.

“Don’t I dare _what_?” Thomas countered instantly, affronted that Jimmy would be so stubborn. “Keep us safe? Avoid bein’ called all manner of nasty things for at least ten minutes time?”

“I worked hard on it,” Jimmy replied with equal snap.

While Thomas found Jimmy’s earnestness charming, it still wasn’t enough to convince him. “And it was quite lovely you did,” Thomas said patiently; “Now it’s served its purpose and we’ve no need to keep it hangin’ about.”  

“Oh, is it really that _embarrassing_ to you?” Jimmy hissed, tensing his shoulders. A gust whipping off the road molded his yellow hair over the top of his head, flattening it against his skull like he’d slicked it down. Jimmy leaned into the wind like he was fighting his way up a mountain, teeth grit and eyes squinted against the elements. Two tight fists trembled at his hips.

“Me life ain’t a production, thanks,” Thomas answered tersely, hating how incensed he was becoming. “I could live just fine without the ridicule and that.”  

“Could you live without _me_ , eh?” came Jimmy’s incising retort. His glare, icy sharp and blue, cut through the air and into Thomas’s naked chest. Motored grumbles dragged the end of his sentence into oblivion, but Jimmy remained obtuse – frown and all. Even Pancake’s barking was swallowed up in the roaring combustion as he fretted between them, unable to convince either man to drop his pride.

A history of anonymity urged Thomas to maintain his distance, but for once, he was bitten with the bravery to swallow the instinct. It had a similar sting to the one that had sent his batting arm flying after his father in rage, though it radiated through him in a more peculiar fashion. He balled his soiled shirt up in a flurry of tangled fingers and then hurled it at Jimmy with as much power as he could. It nailed Jimmy squarely in the jaw, which distracted the blond long enough for Thomas to cross the thatch of grass between them and grab him by the elbows. “If fallin’ for you were a thing I could’ve had any sort of choice in, d’ya think I’d’ve thrown myself over for a complication like you?” he shouted over the noise of traffic. He spat the bloody words until Jimmy’s countenance fell to pieces, jigsawed and unreadable in Thomas’s wild state. “I were tryin’ to kick love out the door, where it hurts less – not drag it back round. But here I am, broken down an’ completely foolish for you.”   

“Oh, yeah? And what about me, right? I ain’t allowed to hope?” Jimmy yelled back. He squirmed in Thomas’s grip, though it was a fruitless endeavor. “If lovin’ a pretty stranger’s a crime, then I’m guilty. Sorry, but I ain’t _sorry_ , neither!”

“And that’s just it! You’re chasin’ kites, Jimmy!” Thomas cried, just one explosion away from a total breakdown. Desperately, he wished Jimmy could understand that it wasn’t as simple as a kiss somewhere in the Welsh countryside. Their torrid love affair was marked, falling away with each kilometer they ran over. His father would rip Jimmy apart with the same ferocity that killed Edward.

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m after a flyin’ balloon, tall clouds, runnin’ stars and airwaves – it doesn’t matter, alright!” Jimmy was hoarse with passion, gasping in concert with his heaving shoulders. He’d stopped trying to writhe free of Thomas, instead trying his best to arrest the other man with the liquid blue in his eyes. He wet his bottom lip, speaking carefully, as though he were seeing himself in Thomas’s aluminum stare. “I could be there when you land,” he offered so quietly, the supersonic highway rush almost ate him up, vocals, mouth and all.  

Not for the first time, Thomas’s insides swelled and crawled under his skin, bubbling into even his narrowest capillary. “I’m – I’m going to crash,” Thomas admitted, sighing. He lifted his arms akimbo, letting them hover until they collapsed against his torso. The shirt, which was still hanging from one hand, unspooled against Thomas’s leg.

“Aren’t we all?” Jimmy shrugged, to which Thomas had no argument. He then inched to the side, shoving his chin in the direction of the Pinto: “Now, I believe you were in the middle of somethin’?”

Mystified, Thomas blinked at the young man with tousled gold hair and a giant hound at his feet. How Jimmy managed to flicker through so many emotions while still remaining afloat filled Thomas with a sort of ease. There was a comfort in watching the ten thousand colors in Jimmy’s soul fly free in the midday sun, blinkering with a carelessness that Thomas could only trace in silhouettes. He decided it was best to leave Jimmy’s change in attitude about the paint, focusing instead on the result. Or so he told himself as he leaned back into the Pinto to scrub at the words. That intention was quickly forgotten when the shirt ran dry and he was forced to chase Pancake down the knoll for another mouthful of slobber. And Pancake, who accepted Jimmy’s whooping as an indication of sport, was happy to lead Thomas in a happy game of tag – which annoyed Thomas at first, until he became consumed by the grass on his back and the sun on his stomach.

“Hold right there,” Jimmy gleefully sniggered as his shape cut through the warmth swaddling his body. Thomas blinked up at Jimmy’s form, which was darkened by the corona of daylight pouring down around his shape. Squinting, he was just in time to catch the flash of Jimmy’s phone as he snapped a candid shot of Thomas spread out on the ground, hopelessly dirty and happy.

“Don’t!” Thomas yelped, immediately terrified by the prospect of his image being proliferated online yet again. He rocked upwards, snatching at Jimmy’s phone, but the blond was jackrabbit quick. Thomas was on his feet, now trying to catch both Jimmy and his ridiculous dog, and was defeated in the end by his own pleasure. He wanted to hate the laughter that had replaced his gasping breaths, but could only revel in the feeling.

He caught Jimmy against the Pinto, trapping him in a cage of strong arms bent upon the roof of the car. Jimmy was still cackling with devious intent even as Thomas tried to school his own smirk. “We’ve got to mind these pictures of yours a little bit – you must understand why,” Thomas admonished the blond, taking him to task for his Instagram habit. “I’m already walkin’ a thin line.”

“Maybe this one’s just for me,” Jimmy grinned back. He arched a slender eyebrow mockingly, driving Thomas wild with the impossibility of his intention. “Can’t share every bit of you, can I?”

“You can do what you like with me, it seems,” Thomas acquiesced with a note of internal surprise. Where this new mouthful of derring-do had come from was simple to guess, but it was the ease with which he executed it that truly gave him pause. Suddenly, his anticipation to get back on the road had dissolved, replaced with a desire to play. Perhaps their excursion was just a weekend jaunt, Thomas thought as he grabbed Jimmy by the shoulders to grapple him back onto the grass; his obsession with self-flagellation was doing the work of his father even while he took such a vacation – a real instance of the son growing into that which he swore he would not. But Jimmy was pulling Thomas out of himself, and how the sensation of being uncorked made his very bones tingle!

“Good – and I will,” chortled Jimmy, who was already trying to bound after Pancake. He shot off after the gleeful dog like a boy on holiday: “If you can catch me first!”

Thomas instantly pushed off the Pinto, flying down the knoll with arms that rode the wind. The challenge was accepted.

 

\--    

 

It took Thomas three quarters of an hour to finally wrestle Jimmy to breathless submission. He’d even been audacious enough to steal a kiss or two in the heights of their amusement, riddled with even more boldness at the thought of all the blustering motors on the carriageway above, zooming on their way in ignorance of the flowers and romance blooming on the hill. They forgot Thomas’s discarded shirt about halfway through their roughhousing, but Pancake happily chewed it into a sloppy rag for their use on the Pinto later on. Afterwards, with the radio blaring, Thomas finished wiping the rear window clean while Jimmy danced to the music, hands in the air.

When they finally hit the road again, it was Thomas behind the wheel, freshly clad in a pink polo shirt. Thomas had to force his eyes upon the road, always tempted to kidnap peek after peek at the phlegmatic youth. Apparently even familiarity with Jimmy’s skin, his kiss, and his smell had no bearing on how addictive Thomas found him. Jimmy reclined in the passenger seat with bare feet kicked up onto the console. The seatbelt was buckled across his hips at Thomas’s insistence, but it wasn’t serving much purpose in conjunction with how far Jimmy had cranked back the seat. He continued to swerve his wrists in time with the radio, which he had become even more controlling of without the distraction of driving. In one hand, a cigarette he’d pilfered from Thomas smoldered, its banner of smoke trailing through the crack window as the Pinto charged onwards. 

_“Let’s go have fun – you and me in the old Jeep,  
_ _Ridin’ round town with our rifles on the front seat!”_

The day had become bright enough to justify borrowing the sunglasses Jimmy had stolen from his father’s bedroom on their way out. Their rectangular lenses had a particularly nineties vogue, though Thomas wasn’t quite sure he had the face for such kitschy-cool. At least they provided a dark mask for all the moods rattling around behind his eyes, banging drums of desire and fecklessness within. He’d never ridden at the forefront of his life, fueled on his own gasoline: it left him at a loss. Even while glancing up at the rearview, he was reminded of the hot debate he and Jimmy had gone through on the roadside, and stressed himself black and blue over how clumsy he’d been. It had taken him the twenty minutes since they’d got back underway to fully comprehend why Jimmy had been so upset by his decision to erase the problem. Outside his head, how uncanny the color must have seemed when he’d flown at Jimmy’s painted lettering like the idea of a future together had been the thing to make him ill.

“I’m sorry I got scared,” Thomas finally found the bolster to say. A whole song had bumped through the Pinto’s stereo and through the tendons in Jimmy’s twisting fingers, and though Jimmy had intoned the chorus, not a word had relayed between them. A crescent of sunlight passed across Jimmy’s face, illuminating the contour of his cheek as he turned into a bass beat on the radio’s next pick. Thomas thought the streak of blue that glinted beneath Jimmy’s lashes might pin him to his half of the car. Just a hint of Jimmy’s attention was enough to shred all his inhibitions.  

“You don’t have to be,” Jimmy decided with what Thomas deemed arbitrary indifference. While Jimmy acted as though he had forgotten the whole thing in a whirlwind of other fun, it didn’t mean that the whole thing had been undone in the same sludge of drool and paint that had settled the other matter. He could be terribly esoteric in that way, Thomas had learned.

“Well, I’d like to be, so I am,” Thomas replied, pulling the steering wheel to change lanes. “It’s just difficult when you’re used to being just one way for so long. You form a lot of bad habits.”

“I’ll say,” Jimmy agreed cryptically. He’d tilted his head back, pressing the filter of his cigarette to his lips to lick another gasp of nicotine.

Thomas paused long enough to glance into his sidemirror and flick his blinker on for another lane shift. His eyes darted above the rims of his sunglasses, his lips parted around the ghost of a thought – a thought which flickered and died the moment he tried to speak.

Without warning, there was a sudden rumble, a pop and a bang that sent a torn wheel of rubber bouncing across traffic. The Pinto lurched forward beneath Thomas’s feet and skidded dangerously out of control, even as Thomas gripped the wheel and attempted to steady the vehicle. But Jimmy was dangerously loose in his seat, a distraction Thomas couldn’t handle. He threw his arm to the side to try and catch Jimmy as he rocketed forward, his left hand still clutching the wheel in a desperate attempt to keep the Pinto from veering into something else. It was by sheer luck that they managed to roll into the hard shoulder without a collision, though there was all manner of chaos in their wake. A disoriented survey of their surroundings included a blown out tire carcass in the middle of the nearest lane, which oncoming traffic was haphazardly trying to avoid with last-minute maneuvers towards the right. The Pinto, meanwhile, was pointed down the side of the grassy hill that bordered the shoulder, unevenly balanced on three wheels and a naked hubcap. Thomas groaned, fumbling for the ignition key.

“Dead,” Thomas gasped at the chrome medallion that marked the steering wheel’s center. Pintos were notorious for their inability to weather collisions, and he could only thank God that they’d somehow managed to make it over the edge of the road without exploding. He let his eyes fall in and out of focus, almost like he couldn’t trust his own senses. “We ought to be _dead,_ ” he repeated to no one in particular. He had a monstrous headache and a stiff neck. A cursory examination of his aching head found a thin patina of sweat caked with blood, which had gummed just above his brow. He racked his memory, unsure when he’d even suffered an impact, and then kicked himself into a panic when he considered that Jimmy might have suffered worse. He whirled to the right, desperate to find Jimmy intact.

Jimmy was crunched in his corner of the car, bent against the dash. Pained groans bubbled at lips as he began to stir, but Thomas was already clawing at his own seatbelt, desperate to clamber over to Jimmy’s aid. With a gentle touch, Thomas reached for Jimmy but was afraid to attempt moving the other man. Behind him, Pancake was whimpering with equal concern. The dog had managed to withstand the roll, but was clearly agitated by the smell of blood in the air. He tried to press his way forward, urgently trying to nose Thomas out of the gap between the two front seats.

Much to Thomas’s unending relief, it was Jimmy who cleared his own status. “Wh-What was that?” he grumbled against the dash, curiously thumbing his forehead and doing his best to assess his own damage. He’d suffered a bruise that made him wince when he touched the back of his skull, but seemed no worse for wear.

Twisted round so that he might reexamine the highway, Thomas could only guess at the exact culprit. “One of our tires blew out, I s’pose,” he hazarded, though he had no idea if he’d punctured the rubber on some unseen trap upon the tarmac or if something else was to blame. Honestly, his driving was no more responsible than Jimmy’s: he was willing to bet their doom had crept up in the spaces that had been blacked out by the eclipse of Jimmy’s mouth.

“Should’ve maybe checked the pressure on ‘em before we left,” was the most Jimmy had to say on the matter, though he still couldn’t help adding: “American piece of junk.”

“Where’d you even _find_ this bloody thing, anyway?” Thomas had to know. The question had popped to mind because of Jimmy’s complaint, but Thomas would have been a liar if he’d pretended that his curiosity wasn’t rooted elsewhere.

“Internet,” Jimmy responded vaguely, which might have been an easy inference if the way Jimmy’s thumbs were already tapping at his mobile’s screen was any barometer. He paused to snort at something flashing across the display and then quickly went back to his typing. “It belonged to some bloke from Boston come to teach at Trinity or sommat,” he volunteered after another blip of silence. “Fits me life a lot more than me old ride, anyway.”

“This thing’s a death trap,” Thomas deadpanned, while simultaneously trying to imagine what type of car Jimmy might have once owned before. A part of him desperately wanted to task Jimmy for risking his life every time he got behind the wheel of the Pinto, but another bit – one which had come much more outspoken since Thomas had taken his first leap with Jimmy – was rather proud. He dodged the matter entirely by retooling the subject, saying instead, “If you’re tryin’ to look up how to properly change out a spare tire, I can do it.”

“Hmm? Oh,” Jimmy trilled, though it didn’t quite pull him from his phone. Pancake, who was moaning for attention, was lucky to get a halfhearted scratch from Jimmy.

Thomas frowned, growing steadily uncomfortable with Jimmy’s sudden shift in focus. Usually such turns in mood boded unpleasant thoughts – ones that probably had to do with that silly girl, Ivy. A grain of jealousy frothed within Thomas, overflowing with a need to be the only one Jimmy thought about in blue moments. “If you’re worried about concussion, I don’t think I’ve got one. Changin’ the tire’ll be no problem,” Thomas inserted with a slight curl of malice. He hated the way he’d spun so quickly from a little Yorkshire cottage in which he drank tea with Pancake and Jimmy in a midnight garden, only to crashland back on the A40, ignored and unimportant in a lame Pinto. _Stupid thoughts like that are how you get killed, Barrow_ , Thomas told himself nastily; _Bet you blew the wheel on a big ball of soppy bullshit like that. Next time, fuckin’ pay attention!_

“Pay goddamn _attention_!” Thomas shouted, whacking the dashboard hard enough to bruise. The outburst did its work, inadvertently disrupting Jimmy’s concentration. The blond snapped up, mixed up in a whirl of offense and confusion.

“Okay – _what_?” Jimmy huffed, clearly under the impression that Thomas had been addressing him directly. He stared across the cabin at Thomas, mutely attempting to pick apart Thomas’s wills one nerve at a time. “Before you get all cross, I’ll have you know I was just tryin’ to see where we might find a new tire – an’ then I noticed Ms. Sybil had messaged us. She’s well, if you’re interested.” The snark riding Jimmy’s tone was unmistakable.

Though Thomas _was_ rather guilt shot to hear the truth Jimmy’s motive, it was overshadowed by another fact. “You don’t have a spare?” Thomas gaped. It amazed him that he still remembered how to be surprised by any of Jimmy’s haphazardness.

“I mean, I _do_ ,” Jimmy intoned, slightly protective of his impetus. “But you’ve just popped it.”  

“Of course I have,” Thomas droned with a roll of his eyes. As if there was an alternate remedy to be found in investigation, Thomas popped the driver’s door open and sidled out. He was invigorated by the sudden liberation of space, and took a moment to shudder with relief that he could still pop his every joint – albeit stiffly. Then, with folded arms, he turned to face the Pinto, which drooped awkwardly down the side of the hill on its stripped rotor. A part of him wanted to bless their crummy luck: the longer they were run aground, the longer he could keep his toes above hell.

On the other side of the Pinto, Jimmy chanced death by popping onto the hard shoulder and then dashing around the bonnet to join Thomas by the unhappy wheel. They must have looked quite the pair to those who slowed down long enough to catch a look, mismatched in their shirts and trainers, but evenly described in pose, crossed arms, consternated brow and all.

“Sybil said maybe Jack could bring us a new tire, but she doesn’t know when,” Jimmy informed Thomas after about five minutes of glaring at the Pinto, like disapproval could solve the issue. “It might be faster to just fetch one ourselves,” he suggested with fingers already twirling across his mobile’s screen, already in search of a nearby petrol station no doubt.  

“And leave the car?” Thomas wondered dubiously.

“Like anyone’s goin’ to get it that far,” Jimmy shrugged, head down. Thomas kept his mouth shut: he’d have offered to stay if the hike was truly their only choice, but he wasn’t about to willfully pass over another adventure with Jimmy either. Hundreds of butterflies uncorked inside his belly at the very idea, pleased by the thrill it gave him. _No more dull days for Thomas Barrow_ , he remembered with a little pique of joy: _At least, not while we’re still travellin’ outlaws – while the world’s still at its bonny best._

“Besides,” Jimmy went on, shoving his mobile into a pocket with the confidence of someone who had just Googled the secrets of the universe, “Pancake could use the walk, especially after an ordeal like that.” He whirled on a heel, marching back to the car for his pet. He coaxed the Saint through the open driver’s side door, though the animal’s weight on the uneven front of the car made the whole contraption whine in a way Thomas didn’t particularly care for.

But Thomas remained where he was, hands clamped beneath his armpits. “Yes, nothin’ like a piss to resolve the terror of a near-death experience,” he muttered to the highway, while Jimmy went rooting through the boot in search of Pancake’s bag. This was one of those moments where Pancake’s needs seemed to outweigh everything else in Jimmy’s world. Thomas might have been envious if the dog hadn’t decided to spend the interim frolicking around Thomas’s feet, hot on the trail of a wobbling butterfly as it flapped against the wind. At one point, the delicate insect alighted on the crease in Thomas’s trousers, bright yellow against the grass-stained pinstripe: Pancake charged, somehow managing to both unsteady Thomas and slap a huge patch of drool into the fabric. The butterfly merrily escaped, spinning off upon the breeze. Pancake held his position at Thomas’s side, barking until the little creature had vanished.

“What about our luggage?” Thomas fretted as Jimmy blazed by, striding into the afternoon sun with a ribbon of plastic baggies streaming out of one pocket and a handful of bone-shaped biscuits bulging out of another. Concern that Pancake might chase another winged thing out into the road was negated by the lack of harness and lead, but at least he’d brought a ball should they end up somewhere less congested.

“Well, I’ve got everything I need,” Jimmy shrugged, canine gleaming in the bright afternoon weather.

He led the way down the roadside with only his confidence on his back, and a soft, secretive kind of smile on his face. There was no allusion to how long it would take them to find the nearest petrol station, but Thomas worried about it less with every step. By the time they’d walked half a mile, and the Pinto had shrunk to the size of a toy on the horizon, Thomas had already forgotten the detailed horror story he’d invented about their possessions. If they came back and found the Pinto’s windows smashed in, their cases missing and his precious cricket bat stolen, he wasn’t going to die. Perhaps, buried beneath all that stuff, there was liberation.

Jimmy was quick to tire of the pebbly line that separated the road from the countryside. With a decorated windup, Jimmy cocked back on his left foot and then lobbed Pancake’s ball into a fat nimbus. Pancake was so smitten with excitement, he could only leap in tight circles as the spheroid popped up. Thomas was no better, running wild with the color of Jimmy’s flushed cheeks and the twist of his torso. All of it seemed to catch in the blue sky, a moment for Thomas to fold into a pocket for a stormy day.

The ball began to drop about fifteen feet from the carriageway, over a fence that edged a sprawling field of scarlet lychnis and cottonsedge. Belligerently, Pancake tore at the peat caking a hole in the chicken wire so that he might squirm underneath. He was already wriggling through the other side when Thomas and Jimmy finally managed to catch up. Flossy motes of seed changed from snow to copper as they fell through the air, plucked up and swept about by a soft zephyr. While Pancake was busy hunting for his ball, Thomas and Jimmy lingered on an oak post to admire the landscape. Thomas never remembered England being so beautiful.

“There’s a service area over that ridge,” Jimmy informed Thomas with an arbitrary toss of one hand. “I bet we’ll get there in half the time if we take this shortcut.”

Thomas simply nodded and started to climb the fence. At this point, he’d accepted that Jimmy was going to play the leader whether Thomas liked it or not. Neatly, he hoisted himself onto the wooden post and kicked his legs over the ivy-tangled wire. He heard a snatch of fabric catch and tear on his way over, but it wasn’t enough to hold him fast. He tumbled into the field of flowers with the audacity to laugh, even when Jimmy careened into him from behind. They both crashed in a tangle of limbs and clover, Thomas’s body a cushion for Jimmy’s as they hit the soil.

“Lucky, yeah?” Jimmy crowed down at Thomas.

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed breathlessly. Above him, Jimmy steadied himself on tensed, conditioned arms, his face wreathed in crimson petals, drifting seed pods and cerulean clouds. Jimmy was so familiar to him, even when he shone so vibrantly in hues Thomas had never once beheld.

A throttle of fun coursed through Jimmy, suddenly launching him into the flowers like a bottle rocket squealing through great heights. Thomas rolled onto his stomach to catch sight of Jimmy as he bounced to his feet and galloped over the foliage. He burst through the color and into an Elysium of Thomas’s own imagining, where footsteps bloomed and the meadow belonged to their wildest whims. Thomas dashed after Jimmy with a fervor that matched Pancake’s enthusiasm for fetch. The youthfulness that had escaped Thomas long ago surged up through his shoes the faster he sprinted, like he’d just woken up in the middle of a freefall. He was an unfettered fool in love – and he’d never been so thrilled to be.

It took Thomas seventy-eight paces to gain on Jimmy, and then fourteen more to get his arms around the other man’s waist. He dove back into the flowers, dragging a yelping Jimmy along with him. They wrestled through the spider-flossed lychnis, though Jimmy, laughing riotously, let himself be thrown over every time he found himself on top. Thomas swore he heard the words, “I love you, I love you,” beneath the gleeful roil, though Thomas had never heard it pronounced in such a way.

Around where the flowers petered out into brambles, Thomas and Jimmy staggered to their feet, winded by mirth. Recaptured ball in mouth, Pancake leapt around them in circles as they proceeded towards a line of trees that bordered the rim of the field. Oddly, the crunch of twigs beneath their soles overpowered the roar of traffic once they passed beneath the leafy canopy. Emboldened by the cover of the wood, Thomas reached out for Jimmy’s hand, which swung haphazardly at his side. And though Jimmy was busy tempting Pancake with a crushed dog biscuit, his fingers still curled resolutely around Thomas’s at the touch.

On the other side of the trees, nature was immediately paved over by human ingenuity. A sprawling car park, which stank of exhaust and petrol, crushed what little grass peeked out of the thicket. With stray petals and cotton floss stuck in their hair, Thomas, Jimmy and Pancake emerged between a Fiat and a Jeep with the raggedy look of two Romani wanderers. The atmosphere of hurried travel abruptly returned as they plodded towards the center of the service area, leaving the memory of the thin forest as a tiny blip of solitude that had been there one minute, gone the next.

As they neared the pavilion that housed the roadside amenities, it became clear to Thomas that there wasn’t any sort of garage where they might purchase a new tire rubber. He sent Jimmy a particularly concerted look as he queried their next step. “We can’t just walk on and on until we find one,” Thomas groaned, perturbed. “Might as well hoof it all the way up to Manchester if we do.”

“Oy,” Jimmy grunted. He was bent over Pancake, trying desperately to tear an old, brown shoe from the dog’s maw. Pancake had discovered it somewhere between the line of trees and the rows of parked vehicles they were negotiating through, and had abandoned his ball in favor of picking it up. Thomas, meanwhile, continued his desperate quest to find a new spare. Drolly, he invented a few pickup scams he might use to buy one off another driver on the cheap. He already could pick out one or two fat patsies roaming the car park who might fall for the sleight.

Thomas’s attention returned to Jimmy just as the young blond was giving up on tugging the shoe out of Pancake’s mouth. But instead of continuing on his track towards the center of the service area, he’d taken a sharp left, strolling by bumpers and boots with fingers that glided over hot chrome. Thomas drifted behind him, strung along by curiosity as Jimmy threaded aimlessly through the maze of cars. Eventually, Jimmy came to a halt by a flatbed lorry laden with a collection of various tires. “Give me a lift, will you?” Jimmy demanded, one black trainer already cocked over one of the rear wheels.

The piece of Thomas that dictated morality was so miniscule, it hardly pinged once he caught on. With his notorious face, he much preferred an option that kept them both discreet. “Hang on,” he hissed, suddenly very aware of every other person weaving through the car park. Pancake was barking unhelpfully at a pigeon that had alighted upon a discarded butty crust, a commotion which Thomas wished he could silence with a word – especially as a small family neared their location. He moved on instinct, snatching up Pancake’s tattered boot to fling it as far as he could possibly pitch it. “Go get it, you rotter!” he commanded the Saint, who was quick to fall for the ruse. With the flutter of a pigeon wing, Pancake ran off, while the family paused to point and laugh at the loping animal. In the interim, Thomas quickly darted behind the van beside the lorry to help Jimmy up. He got a foot in the face as he struggled to balance Jimmy on interwoven hands, but they managed it in the end. Jimmy got up and over, and Thomas casually stepped back into view to receive Pancake and his shoe with a few rewarding scratches.

“Can we pet him?” came an unexpected voice. The accent was Irish, reminding Thomas of Tom and home.

Flicking his wrist hard enough to shake Pancake’s spittle off his knuckles, Thomas looked up to find himself leveling with a young girl. Her two parents were hovering nearby, carefully monitoring their interaction, while Jimmy clanged amid the tires, ignorant of the new scrutiny. Thomas hurriedly cranked out another impulsive plan to keep their deceit under wraps. “He don’t much care for strangers, like,” he drawled, yearning for a cigarette. Smoking helped him feel aloof.

Unfortunately for Thomas, Pancake was ecstatic at the prospect. Before the girl had a chance to retract her extended hand, Pancake had slid beneath her palm, panting with dopey glee as the girl ruffled his ears.  “Stupid flirt,” Thomas grumbled at the traitorous animal, whose tail was swishing back and forth with pleasure. It was uncanny how much Pancake had learned to emulate his master – for better or worse.

“Doesn’t seem that way to me! He’s so cute!” the girl giggled, stooping to get her arms around the enormous dog. Pancake licked her nose and slobbered onto her embroidered frock. It was almost ridiculous how Pancake became such an attention-monger when young ladies were present.

Pursing his lips, Thomas tried to curb his instinctual retort as best he could. “Must be how you… smell – or sommat,” he grumbled unsuccessfully, hands jammed into his trouser pockets. Behind him, Jimmy shifted about on the lorry’s flatbed with a bang that very nearly gave the game away. Feigning casual indifference, Thomas leaned against the lorry’s rear bumper and then kicked the vehicle hard enough to jostle a warning through the suspension. A faint _“Oof!”_ emanated from behind, which only earned another kick upon the bumper.

“Hey! Clear off, mind?” another disruption intruded upon the scene. Thomas jolted off his heels, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet to spin around and see who this new character was. From the other end of the lorry, a graying man in work boots and overalls had appeared, an overladen keyring jingling around his thumb. He hadn’t noticed Jimmy rustling through the lorry’s cargo, but the vehicle belonged to him and Jimmy was now on borrowed time.

Thomas battled his onset of nerves with a cigarette from his pocket – one of his last. Nonchalantly flaring up his smoke, hoping that Jimmy would come up with some sort of escape while Thomas staved the driver off. “Sorry, mate,” Thomas shrugged. Jutting his chin in Pancake’s direction, Thomas excused his presence: “Me dog’s a bit of a lard bucket,” he said through curled lips.

The driver was not nearly as charmed by Pancake as the Irish girl cuddling with him. He narrowed his eyes at Thomas, then sent a long, hard glare at Pancake, who had zero interest in seeking out affection from the new arrival. Taking in a deep inhalation, the driver returned his focus to Thomas and said in a much more irritated tone, “Right. Now _get_ – make it sharpish, like. I’ve a schedule to keep.”  

The Irish girl heard the demand in a different context from Thomas. Reluctantly, she disengaged from Pancake, fluffing his ears one last time before she made her excuses and scampered back to her parents. The little family continued on their way, leaving Thomas to face the lorry driver alone. Disobligingly, Pancake decided the forgotten butty was the next thing on his agenda, and scooted off to sniff the potential snack without much consideration for Thomas. With a mutter of the word, “ _Traitor,”_ Thomas banged loudly on the side of the lorry and turned to face his new enemy.

“I thought I told you to kick off,” the driver snarled at Thomas impatiently. He unlocked the door and wrenched it open with a rusty scream, while Thomas did his best to make himself obtrusive.

“It’s a free country,” Thomas retorted snidely, hoping his attitude would mask the surreptitious glances he kept casting at the lorry’s cargo. The tires had toppled out of their neatly stacked rows, a victim of Jimmy’s terrible espionage.

“Who says?” the driver derided, unimpressed.

“The law,” Thomas snapped. He swallowed a brave cloud of nicotine and then exhaled it through his nostrils, adding, “And Parliament.”

Even Thomas’s most sarcastic wasn’t enough to chip away at his grizzled opponent. “Well, you can just get on the line with the PM – ask him about rights of property for me, will you?” the driver rejoined, partially through hoisting himself into the lorry’s cabin.

Though Thomas had opened his mouth to say something particularly cutting, he never got a chance to deploy the attack. Just then, a triumphant whoop came from the back of the lorry, calling the attention of both Thomas and the driver to Jimmy as he stood upright, a Pinto-sized tire looped over one shoulder. A tense beat dragged on, through which Jimmy realized that he had won some unwanted scrutiny. The driver, meanwhile, took his time processing the scene, scrunched eyes darting between Thomas and the thief above.

“S’pose this is me cue,” Jimmy winked, his grin dazzling through a sunbeam. Then, without apology or manners, he hopped the lorry and hit the tarmac running. He whistled for Pancake as he crossed the scene of the crushed butty, which immediately won Pancake’s loyalty. The pair dashed off, Jimmy chortling wildly as he shouted a signal for his other partner in crime: “Hurry up, Thomas! We’ve got things to see, people to do!”

The wryness of his comment thrummed within Thomas, spreading through him like the attitude was airborne and breathable. With a smug tilt to his mouth, Thomas pitched the rest of his cigarette, saluted the lorry driver with no shortage in cheek, and then reversed on his heels and off after Jimmy on agile legs. Even as the old driver tried to rally other bystanders with all manner of derogatory cries, Thomas swelled with pleasure at this newest addition to his rap sheet, chasing after Jimmy like he was soaring a kite. They bolted across the lot, chaotically weaving through the platoon of parked cars to the music of their own enjoyment. Jimmy would fly out ahead of Thomas, the tire bouncing against his hip as he sailed towards the line of trees – only to end up stepping on Thomas’s heels whenever a burst of athleticism sent Thomas charging into the lead. Jimmy hurdled over bonnets, sliding across the metal on his bottom, while Thomas pushed his way through any obstruction with flying elbows and dark laughter. They left a frenzy swelling in their wake – and far too much confusion to effectively crush their spirits.

They leapt from pavement and over the tall grass that edged the lot, shooting up the little hill that fed into the wooded knoll with impish delight. The trees were dense enough that the impromptu mob left behind on the tarmac lost its energy once they’d crossed into the thicket. Glaring sunshine gave way to medallions of silver punched out through the gaps in the foliage above. The dappled light flickered upon sweaty flesh and dampened shirts as they decelerated to a jog, and then to a leisurely stroll. Jimmy threw the stolen tire onto the bed of crunchy leaves beneath their feet, stretching his arms towards the branches above as he crowed with mirth.

“Well, that was a laugh or ten,” he assessed devilishly.

“I’d say you went too far,” Thomas started to say, but he interrupted himself with a snort of his own; “But then I’d be a massive hypocrite.”

“Wow, Thomas – I’m _flattered_ ,” Jimmy chided while combing his nails through his upset coiffure.  

“Don’t get used to it,” Thomas replied, casting a rather superior look down his cheeks as he spoke.

However, his brassiness softened quickly, unable to withstand the obscenity in even just the color Jimmy’s lips. A different boldness seeded within Thomas as he fell transfixed under the spell of Jimmy’s rude mouth. Striding over the mossy ground between them, Thomas seized Jimmy by the elbows and dragged him near enough for a kiss. Magic exploded upon his tongue the moment Jimmy’s lips touched his, powerful enough to change weather, or even the tilt of the very earth. They might have lost hours, days or eons as they dallied in such a fashion, but Thomas didn’t even come close to bothering – especially when Jimmy’s wrists caught the sway of Thomas’s hips and matched the rhythm with a song heard by just them two.

They broke only when Jimmy had started to get more handsy, their feet stumbling clumsily about until Thomas backed into the tire and toppled over. Jimmy took the fall with him, though he landed adjacent to Thomas with his arse in the air and his nose in the sediment. At least he was laughing as he flipped onto his back, wiping his face of dirt and grass like a naughty schoolyard child. “That weren’t fair,” Jimmy smirked, suggesting just the opposite.

“I’ll show you _fair_ ,” Thomas retorted, indignant.

He never got a chance to demonstrate what he meant by the comment, for the moment he started to lean towards Jimmy, the blond was already popping back up. “Let’s see it, then!” Jimmy taunted as he glided into a beautifully formed dash towards the lychnis field. Quick to follow suit, Pancake bounded after Jimmy, leaving Thomas alone with the tire on the woodland floor.

But Thomas wasn’t about to be so defeated, even if he had to lug the tire on his own. Hefting it over his shoulder, he flew after Jimmy and his dog, demonstrating a loping grace that only a fine sportsman would possess. Their mirth echoed under the cover of branches, only to explode upon the expansive wind when the broke into the flowering meadow once more. Jimmy was already halfway through the red blooms when Thomas emerged, highstepping his way towards the Pinto, which loomed steely blue against the smog of traffic on the other side of the fence.

After cutting through the floral sea, Thomas shed the tire as he fell against the fencepost with a dramatic sigh. Jimmy had already hopped back over the barrier, now crouched in the grass as he reversed the chickenwire protruding around the hole Pancake had squished through before. Thomas crossed one ankle over the other and leaned upon a crooked elbow to watch, amused by Jimmy’s lack of progress. The temptation to make some sort of snide observation was quelled only by how endearing it was to see Jimmy working so fervently to get his giant, furry friend back to his side.

“Come _on_ , big boy,” Jimmy coaxed, all ten fingers spreading a wider gap in the sharp wire.

Something about his tone blurred whether he was addressing Pancake or Thomas – though Thomas willfully chose to take it as a personal call to action. He mirrored Jimmy’s position on his own side of the fence, holding back the malleable wire with his second pair of hands. The additional help seemed to do the trick, for Pancake managed to push his way through unscratched. Once he’d sidled through, Pancake immediately attacked Jimmy with an excited flurry of licks and nuzzles, while Thomas busied himself with rolling the tire through the same hole in the fence. Then he climbed the wooden post, fixing to launch himself over the hurdle that divided the roadside from the ethereal lychnis and cottonsedge. For a moment, he loitered at the top, a desperado perched high as he peered out into the distance beneath a stiff salute. There was nothing in the future except red taillights and directional signs pointing at the horizon.

“What if we got lost?” Thomas suddenly posited, jolting with a short, sharp shock. “What if we just run away?”

Jimmy quirked an eyebrow at him from the buttercup loam underfoot. He stared up at Thomas, waiting for him to catch the unconvinced look on his face.

“We could be free,” Thomas clarified, still staring at all the vehicles escaping London’s smoggy confines. “We could be together, maybe.”

“Ain’t we already?” Jimmy shrugged indifferently.

Shifting his focus from the passing traffic to the man he loved, Thomas’s heart became swollen with the notion.     

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, we are.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you so much for reading and being patient with my slower rate of progress. Stupid real life :P 
> 
> The song Jimmy's got on the radio is 'Fun' but Troye Sivan.


	19. Bristol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy take one last detour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taken so long for me to update this story! I won't let it fall to the wayside, I promise! I hope having it on a Friday instead of a Saturday makes up for my tardiness, and that you all very much enjoy it. Sexy times ahoy!

 

At least Jimmy had a car jack and a tool kit stowed in the Pinto’s boot. He sat cross-legged in the grass, playing tug-of-war with Pancake, while Thomas ratcheted the car up to fit the new tire rubber onto the hub. Though Jimmy was making his game with Pancake a rather vocal one, Thomas was still quite aware of Jimmy’s stare, which weighted heavy upon the yoke of his shoulders as he labored. Mechanics gave Thomas a certain calming satisfaction, but the smack of Jimmy chewing bubblegum just within earshot made the work a more fiddly affair.

When he was through, Thomas was drenched in sweat that felt chill in the crisp air. His body ached and he was starving for a proper meal. He would have volunteered to drive them straight to the nearest roadside restaurant if his wallet wasn’t quite so thin and his craving for a new packet of cigarettes not so dire. Instead, he lugged the car jack back around the Pinto and hoisted it into the boot. Then, with an exhausted sigh, he collapsed beneath the shade of the open hatchback, legs swinging over the tail bumper as he reclined against the pile of luggage inside. Images of Jimmy in the moonlight tattooed themselves upon the arm Thomas had flung over his eyes.

When a sudden stroke of spittle caressed his calf, Thomas startled. He nearly whacked his skull against the interior ceiling of the Pinto in his sudden shock, scrambling back into a sitting position that revealed Pancake hulking between his feet. No sooner had he registered the animal’s shape was he flattened onto his back once more. Disoriented against the cases, Thomas took a moment to recognize Jimmy’s weight upon his body, hands clamped upon his shoulders and shaking him urgently. “C’mon, c’mon,” Jimmy hissed into his ear; “We got to make tracks before that wanker from the MSA comes sniffin’ round for us.”

“Five minutes more, please,” Thomas sighed into the crook of Jimmy’s neck, careless of any potential danger in lingering. Something about the shield of Jimmy’s body made Thomas confident enough to challenge the strange roads and stalwart cities ahead, invigorated with a heroism that bore godly blessings. His arms crept around Jimmy’s torso and crushed the shadow between them, almost as if holding the blond boy was what made him lucky. It made him wonder if – just perhaps – he was.

“You can always have five minutes more with me,” Jimmy breathed into Thomas’s ear, sticky sweet with the chew of strawberry bubblegum. The smack of it was tantalizing and completely unhelpful in motivating Thomas, who was pleased to let Jimmy simply melt over top of him instead.

It was only the disentangling of their limbs that quieted the magic crackling upon Thomas’s flesh. Coaxed back upright as Jimmy slid out of the boot, Thomas stared down the grassy knoll that lined the carriageway, quietly assessing the trail he and Jimmy had already traversed together. He revisited all the boundaries they’d crossed, amazed that someone would follow him through hell with such loyalty. It was an aspect so subtle and alien to Thomas, he worried it was a trick of the mind that might snuff out if he blinked.

“Let’s get some miles in, and then we’ll have another stopover, right?” Jimmy suggested as Thomas reluctantly clambered onto the gravel. He reached up to snap the Pinto’s hatchback closed, adding, “We’ll find some biscuits and a thermos – have tea in some other meadow. Pancake’ll love it.”

“Yeah, right. ‘Course,” Thomas murmured as he watched Jimmy watching Pancake.

Without any added fanfare, Jimmy filched the keys out of Thomas’s pocket like it was the most natural thing to do. He unlocked the driver’s door and cranked the seat forward to allow Pancake passage to the back. Thomas was still stuck on the roadside as Jimmy worked, unable to shake the trance of Jimmy’s strong frame and all the little quirks of his demeanor. Their toes in flowering moss and the Welsh surf flickered through Thomas’s head, somehow balanced on the epicenter of Jimmy’s gravity. A sway in Jimmy’s hips made the very earth quake beneath Thomas’s rubber soles, while a hole cindered in his pocket, hot with the imprint of Jimmy’s thieving fingers.

“Beautiful country, this,” Jimmy suddenly commented. He was wedged between the open door at the Pinto’s hull, an elbow bent upon the roof. Golden and serene in the bright afternoon, Jimmy smiled at Thomas in a way that was reminiscent of the first time they’d met. “We should enjoy it,” Jimmy went on, though his lips moved slower than the sound of it. For Thomas, it was an invitation.

They both slid into the Pinto as if on cue, slamming its two doors in quick succession. Leaning over the steering wheel, the keys floated just outside the ignition as Jimmy decided at once: “Let’s go get lost in it, shall we?”

He didn’t even wait for Thomas to agree before he gunned the puttery engine and eased back onto the roadway, laughing.

 

\--

 

Thomas wasn’t positive if Jimmy had done so on purpose or not, but four hours later, they were hopelessly turned around. Somewhere near Birmingham, they’d made a stop for Pancake to have a run, which then evolved into a quest for food. Jimmy had been so determined to have the picnic he’d suggested earlier, they had actually ended up going into town to purchase little sandwiches, cigarettes and some bottled tea to take out into the countryside. Pancake got another chance to hunt butterflies while Thomas and Jimmy shared the makeshift meal beneath the shade of a roadside ash. By the time they’d got underway again, Jimmy had veered southwest instead of north, and before long, signs for Bristol began to populate the scenery. At first, Thomas said nothing – until most of the day had wasted away, and it became apparent that Jimmy was going to loop right back around to London if he kept quiet.

“Is this how you managed to make the trip from Yorkshire last longer than the length of Europe? Or are you just that directionally obtuse?” Thomas eventually wondered aloud. He wasn’t particularly annoyed, but his ability to mentally prepare for Manchester was terribly strangled without a proper estimation of how long it would take to return there.

“Who’s rushin’, eh?” Jimmy shrugged without showing any signs of slowing down. As it was, he was already whipping along at a rate that was tempting the notice of coppers and speed cameras alike.

“Nobody, but….” Thomas was forced to agree tersely. He hesitated, his gaze lilting outside the window, where it hung listlessly upon his pale face in the side mirror. Indigo-streaked gloaming was chasing the Pinto, refracting in the glass and dipping the whole world in long, dusky shadows. As the prospect of spending another night with Jimmy began to fade into the sky, Thomas realized he was just as loath to give up the endless summer and the roads that went on forever. Jimmy had fallen out of the clear, blue sky – a bright wind upon a stale existence – and whisked Thomas over horizons he’d only ever yearned after.

“They can’t stop us if they can’t catch us, neither,” Jimmy quipped as the speedometer needle quivered dangerously over the 100MPH mark.

“They can at that speed!” Thomas yelped, touching his forehead and then his sternum out of habit.

Begrudgingly, Jimmy slowed down, though he still showed no signs of heading back for Manchester. There was a boyish frown decorating his angelic lips, a puff to his cheeks which deflated with a sigh. “Fine,” he agreed once the Pinto had mingled in with the herd of automobiles that were adhering to the road laws. He glared intently through the windscreen, his back much straighter than the lean of his seat allowed for as he gripped the wheel. The tremolo of his humming quavered beneath the radio, offset by a phrase or two. 

_“Mmm… thinkin’ – nothing’s wrong.  
_ _Who’s gonna to drive you home – tonight?”_

Quietly, Thomas watched as the sun and moon exchanged their pleasantries in the waning light. Beside him, bathed in opal and copper, Jimmy’s yellow hair looked as though it had caught fire, his skin tanned by ember and brimstone. Each moment of caffeine, nicotine and petrol felt more stolen than the last, even as Jimmy diverted the Pinto over the extra miles of moonlight that delayed the inevitable. He’d have sooner let Jimmy drive them straight over the edge of the very world if it meant holding on to one more unbidden second with him.

“Just one more night, Thomas. I just want one more night,” Jimmy stopped singing long enough to say. Teeth grit, he was still vehemently focused on the road ahead, where red taillights were blinkering on one by one. He actually seemed distressed, like each new lamp was illuminating a path to disaster. “Please.”

There was no need for Jimmy to elaborate upon the unspoken question. The shape of his name in Jimmy’s mouth was the single word Thomas could hear, eradicating every little fib he told himself about how he’d go back to the way he used to be when he was returned home. Even in the silent spaces that filled his father’s house, Thomas knew the ghost of Jimmy would follow him.

“I wouldn’t mind….” Thomas trailed off, thrown by Jimmy’s uncommon display of reticence. He’d been a scant instant away from defying his flagellant instincts in favor of a choice rooted within wishes, but he caught himself before whimsy had a chance to cuckold him. He bit down on his desires and pounded his sternum as if the impact might extrapolate some form of reparation for his selfishness, but was blessed, instead, with a fresh slobber stain on his trouser, where Pancake had dribbled. The dog had apparently sniffed out Thomas’s turmoil, and had inserted himself into the front as far as his chubby girth would permit to offer comforting nuzzles, licks – and drool. Thomas opened his mouth to speak, all the while batting at Pancake with frenetic little swishes of his hand, but his voice was strangled, and Pancake did not succumb to defeat so easily. Strangely, it was only by looping an arm around Pancake’s neck in the semblance of a hug that Thomas managed win dominance over the middle of the car. While Pancake heeled within the embrace, the tactile downiness of the dog’s coat soothed Thomas’s palm to stroke it, silently flabbergasted that such a simple motion could be so very comforting.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Jimmy coolly interjected, attempting to snuff his flare of sentimentality. He kept checking his look in the side mirror, which reflected a blue mood back into the car. “It’s whatevs.”

“Whatevs? It’s just _whatevs_ to you?” Thomas mimicked, hurt. Tightening his hold around Pancake like he was a sort of talisman, Thomas clarified raw truth of it: “It were a half-assed prayer for salvation what got me you. Wonderful, lovely _you_! A dreamer’s folly, but you all the same!”

The Pinto sputtered as Jimmy’s foot slammed onto the accelerator, launching them back over the speed limit with frightening kick. “You ain’t the only one lookin’ to be saved, y’know!” Jimmy reacted, tearing his attention from the road with haphazard intensity. “Maybe I just want to do for you what you’ve done for me, yeah?”

“That’s hardly an equation!” Thomas rankled. He navigated around Pancake’s massive girth so that he might pin Jimmy with the severity of his stare. He was deaf to the impassioned lines that were leaking from his mouth, but his teeth were grit as he spoke: “I’ll be damned if I take you into that hellhole up Mersey-way, get you tied up in me dark troubles. I haven’t a clue what’ll happen when we get there, but it won’t touch you, right? You hear me, Jimmy Kent? It won’t!”

“I already told you I don’t give a toss about any of that shit! All’s I really care about is _you_ , you fuckin’ moron!” Jimmy argued back with a swerve of the wheel that nearly sent the Pinto careening out of its lane. “Trust me, I’d’ve left you on the side of the road with your case and your stupid cricket bat if I hadn’t already gone leapin off that particular cliff, okay?”

Pancake barked unhelpfully. He quaked against Thomas’s curved elbow, which Thomas soothed with ruffle of the dog’s thick fur. Mentally, he was being baptized in the Welsh tide again, spread out beneath thousands of stars as they monitored the seepage of his heart. The space that the ebbing tide had hollowed out within Thomas for this young man and his silly dog was so enormous, he would most certainly collapse should they be yanked away. He held his breath and counted to ten, at which time he could feel himself crumbling and thus forcing the need to begin again. How anyone could survive under the weight of something as terrible as love was a new mystery to torment Thomas’s curiosity as they drove onwards into the night. He wished they could simply go back to the start – to do it all over again.

An idea suddenly arrested Thomas. He dropped Pancake so that he might twist more fully towards Jimmy “Let’s go see somethin’ _beautiful_ , alright? The ocean – a… a castle, or _somethin_ ’,” he suggested with an earnestness so rare, it actually made his eyes shine in the newborn darkness. “It’s been a while – think we ought to,” Thomas rambled on, suddenly alive with the same thrill that had arrested him while he followed Jimmy through that beachside town their first night together. He let out a breath he hadn’t even remembered stuffing down his throat, entreating Jimmy, “One last time.”

There was only a slight tremble in Jimmy’s profile to hint that he’d heard Thomas’s suggestion, but the sudden kick to the Pinto’s motor concluded that he’d latched onto it with fervor. The highway had since become awash in damp purples that glowed with orbs of ruby and diamond. The spread of their electric dyes filled the Pinto with every motor they passed, offsetting the dull green aura cast by the stereo. Thomas watched Jimmy in the darkness beside him, overwhelmed by the dull blue glimmer beneath Jimmy’s lashes and how much it was all he’d ever needed. Jimmy drummed the steering wheel in time with the radio, obliviously singing along with the same tune spiraling through Thomas’s core. Suddenly, Bristol, in its rocky cradle by the water, seemed as brilliant a destination as Manchester or London – or anywhere else in England. 

_“Who’s going to hold you down when you….”_

Jimmy drove on like he’d been struck by a kind of inspiration. Fat water droplets began to splatter against the windscreen about the time they began to round the Bristol Channel, where Jimmy veered off the motorway in favor of urban sprawl. Thomas kept his window rolled down despite the weather, catching fistfuls of drizzle they raced through the blue night. Bristol was another place Thomas had passed through in a forgotten life, his memories of it faint and floating inside his skull like gray haunts. With Jimmy, the harbor town was unfolding anew for him, reinvented in colors Thomas had long forgotten. They plunged down into the Avon Gorge, tracing the riverbank until the Clifton Bridge manifested overhead, outlined in glimmering amber through the drizzle. Thomas poked his head outside the Pinto to admire the engineering marvel as they sailed underneath, amazed to think that there was such magnificence in the world. The wind flung little beads of water at his cheeks, slapping a thrill into his very flesh.

“There – let’s go _there_ ,” he designated as he dragged himself back into the Pinto with rivulets of water leaking from his slick hair.

It seemed Jimmy had already been visited by the notion: they were deviating up the cliffside, doubling back across the gorge with the suspension bridge ever on the horizon. Pancake howled with delight as the wind whipped through the Pinto and flopped his ears and tongue about.

The opposite side of the river was distinctly more rural, cluttered with trees that swayed against the rainclouds. Though the hour was late, there was still a hubbub at the intersection that heralded the bridge’s approach, and Jimmy slowed the Pinto as they neared. Guiding the car into a brambly gap on the side of the road, Jimmy turned to Thomas with a sheepish blush: “S’pose we ought to walk,” he proposed, already pulling the keys out of the ignition. “Ain’t tryin’ to pay a toll where someone might catch us and that.”

Thomas appreciated the precaution, glad to stretch his legs anyway. He stepped directly into a puddle upon exiting the Pinto, immediately soaking through to his socks, but he shrugged it off in favor of chasing Jimmy and Pancake towards the Victorian landmark. Jimmy hadn't even bothered to put shoes on, and was running through the roadside mud with Pancake close on his heels. Motorists continued to trundle up to the bridge’s nearest tower, ignorant of the trio sloshing through the rain without macs or wellies. The lines of the bridge’s suspension arched in graceful perspective as they neared the pedestrian crossing, lightbulbs flickering in and out of focus beneath the mist. How Thomas’s feet lost their traction and soared above the walkway was a mystery, but he moved as though there were wings lifting his soles. Jimmy was just beyond crumpled knuckles – inches away from grasping hold of a very real fantasy.  

In the center of the bridge, right where the main cable dipped low enough to touch the tarmac, Jimmy skidded to a stop and slid his toes through the barrier’s gridded framework to climb up and take a panoramic photo. Laughing, his tenor echoed throughout the gorge, resonating above even the traffic and Pancake’s howling. The dotted glow that traced the bridge’s cables attached to Jimmy and sunk into moony skin that lit up the dark. Thomas was so transfixed, he nearly careened into Pancake, who was bouncing in a large circle upon the pavement between them. Tripped up, he stooped to try and catch hold of Pancake’s scruff in a clumsy shuffle of feet and limbs.

“C’mere, Thomas!” Jimmy beckoned, at once pulling Thomas out of his romantic curiosities. Still entwined upon the guardrail, Jimmy seemed to be a hundred feet tall even as Thomas straightened. He joined Jimmy at the rail, though he kept his heels firmly adhered to the concrete, while Jimmy boldly dared to climb a bit higher. The added height lined Jimmy’s gaze up with Thomas’s, which chased an embarrassed heartbeat through Thomas when he realized Jimmy was smirking at him.

“The sun’s not up yet,” Jimmy said as he peered across the twinkling cityscape that lay atop the gorge, his mobile poised for another photograph. He snapped the picture: “The world’s still ours, yet.”

Thomas dug his front teeth into his bottom lip, nostrils flaring in consternation. Unlike Jimmy, Thomas felt like all of it was small enough to be crushed in the palm of his hand. He wished they could go back to the start and steal every unmedicated second of it back. Clenching his fingers tightly around the barrier, Thomas frowned, “An’ then what?”

Clouded by a mysterious smile, Jimmy only shrugged – a wholly unhelpful gesture. “Home, I s’pose,” he offered vaguely.

“Home,” Thomas repeated with a despondent air, intoning it as if the meaning was unclear. Home, to him, had been found in a suitcase snapped up by the rude, beautiful boy laughing beside him in the rain. He wondered where it meant to Jimmy – if it was back to London, or maybe to Yorkshire with a wanderlust that had now been satisfied. He could barely suppress the question as it rose in his throat: “Finally time for you to head back to your mum, is it? Ivy, Alfred and all them?”

Jimmy stowed his mirth with a tensed jaw and a stare that glinted sharply in the bridge light. Bars of pink and gold elongated across his face as the cars rushed by, but Thomas’s heart galloped ever so slow. “You know better than that, big boy,” Jimmy quietly intoned, nearly outdone by the long whine of a car horn on the bridge behind them.

“I don’t, though,” Thomas responded automatically. In his hyperactive imagination, saw Jimmy driving around the northern countryside with his old friends there to replace Thomas in the backseat. None of Jimmy’s assurances made a difference to his depression, or the holes that were usually stoppered with lithium. He stared out over the river and saw a lonely chute he might as well have thrown himself down in his despair. The water in his trainers suddenly stung him like he was standing on needles and pins.

“I see you lookin’. I wish you’d stop,” said Jimmy, who had caught the forlorn way Thomas was fixated upon his toes illuminated at the bridge’s edge. “’Cause I’d hate to have to dive after you,” he added with a dash of levity; “I might skin me knees.”

“You’re awfully funny,” Thomas rejoined in a tone that clearly suggested otherwise. He gripped the bannister and tried to calculate how hard he’d hit the water if he tried it: “I ain’t got much left for. All’s I got waitin’ is a father who never loved me and can’t wait to see me in irons. At least this way, I’d get to go out with my last thought bein’ _you_.”

“Why can’t all your thoughts be me?” Jimmy asked, allowing his elbows to fall slack so that he could hang back off the barrier.

Thomas scoffed, almost ridiculed by the notion. “For the same reason you wouldn’t go flyin’ after me if I decided to put m’self out of me own misery.”

“Yeah, I would!” Jimmy snapped, launching himself off the guardrail with a mighty backwards heave. Catlike, he landed lightly, and peered at Thomas with leccy cerulean brightening his irises. “I’d go anywhere for you.”

For a heart-stopping second, Thomas swore he heard the one admission from Jimmy he’d so often repeated to himself in the lonely hours. It wasn’t pretty or even so direct, but Jimmy spoke in a language that was all his own – one that Thomas had grown accustomed to since absconding with him. Following with his hand at Jimmy’s fingertips had left curious as to whether all of life’s great revelations occurred through accidental encounters and coincidence.

But Jimmy wasn’t through. He shoved his way into Thomas’s personal space, near enough to jab a finger against Thomas’s sternum. It bent against the spot where Thomas’s cross had once settled against his skin, hot with fury as he exclaimed, “You know that if you launched yourself into the moon tonight, I’d spin myself into orbit straight after you.” He rolled his palm into Thomas’s chest, tense with passion: “I’d gun that motherfuckin’ Pinto so hard to get there, it’d explode in the goddamn sky!”

A lynchpin had been pulled. Together, they hovered in the center of the bridge, ignorant of the whizzing cars or the brilliant lights that danced up the cables. Everything around them seemed cosmic and blue, like they were swimming in a sea of halogen stars high above the world, where constellations threaded between Bristol and the heavens spelled out Jimmy’s meaning. Thomas tried to control himself, strung out by soppy declarations that hadn’t made a difference until the kindling of his heart. He’d never been so close to the things he wanted, even in the moments he’d had a lover between his legs and on his lips. But there was no mistaking the change in Jimmy, who hung there with hands extended towards Thomas like he was waiting to finally be caught. Even Pancake seemed awed by the fire pluming between his two human companions. Obediently, the Saint sat aside to watch, his curled tail swishing from side to side with anticipation.

At length, wind returned to Thomas’s mouth. Their soles alighted the bridge at the inflection of his voice, soft and ragged as it was: “You’d really do that? For me?”

“I would,” Jimmy affirmed, dipping his chin. “I’d not even have to think about it. Not for a single moment.”

Then, tipping himself forward on extended toes, Jimmy wrapped his arms around Thomas’s neck and nuzzled him gently. Pliable to Jimmy’s touch, Thomas shivered like kissing him was like imbibing a karmic elixir, and melted into the flavor of Jimmy’s mouth, his tongue and his virtue. He cradled Jimmy’s chin and tilted the line of his jaw just so that their kiss flowed unadulterated. In his hands, Jimmy was tied up and twisted around his fingers, blooming fresh with adoration for him, while Thomas lost himself in the mystery of how something could be so very clear and yet, still such a confounding secret all the same – all of it a microcosm seen beneath a fluttering eyelash, the nuances in a look.

It was Pancake whimpering at Jimmy’s knees that stole his attention from Thomas. With natural ease that lacked any of the same importance imprinted upon Thomas, Jimmy’s lips slid over Thomas’s chin and then against the breeze as he turned about to face his pet. “Oh, look at you,” Jimmy simpered, kneeling to scratch Pancake behind the ears; “What a great, needy beast you are.”

Proud to have earned Jimmy back, Pancake licked Jimmy’s curling forelock into a smear of rainwater and saliva, and then wriggled free of his master’s hold to trot back towards the car. Thomas and Jimmy were left to dash after the interloping dog, who was practically beyond the Brunel tower that guarded the famous bridge’s end. Laughter had revisited Jimmy, who was tossing a mirthful observation over his shoulder as he ran ahead: “Looks like Pancake don’t much like heights, eh?”

Thomas chewed down on any overly-grand statements about his own bravery and just trailed behind in an easy jog. By then, it was overt that he’d have followed Jimmy anywhere if it meant just one more glimpse of that cheeky smile. Drizzle and traffic meant nothing to them as they passed back into the wooded recesses beyond the bridge, moving with a rhythm that bounced beneath their feet like a rain dance. Thomas barely noticed the twenty minutes it took for the Pinto to reemerge around the distant bend around which they’d left it, far more entranced by the mud caked to Jimmy’s naked heels, the coil of denim where his trousers had been rolled up his calves. A faint tracing of the tattoo Jimmy wore on the back of his shoulder was just visible through wet cotton.

Intermittent streetlamps were all that guided the way back to the Pinto, which sat just outside the golden aura cast by a lone bulb suspended high over a garden wall. Through the gauzy light, Jimmy could be seen as he yanked open the Pinto’s passenger door, chortling as he urgently waved Pancake into the vehicle before Thomas could catch them. There was no one to see them in the quiet street, which had given way to suburban ruralness, quaint and decorated with foliage. A fresh, dewy scent that was awash with loam filled the damp air, renewing within Thomas the baptismal rite that kissing Jimmy atop the Clifton Bridge had invoked.

“Let me in!” Thomas demanded with cheeks pinched by glee. He ran up to the Pinto and knocked heavily on the roof, while inside, Pancake guarded Jimmy as he writhed into the backseat amidst a tittering fit. Despite cracking the window a bit, Thomas struggled to peer through glass that was growing fogged with body heat, rapping urgently until the click of the lock being disengaged interrupted his plight. Thomas leapt backwards to accommodate Pancake as he nudged the door open to hop back out of the car, clearly more interested in sniffing around the newly washed earth than being cooped up in the Pinto, waiting for the rain to stop. Seizing his chance, Thomas grabbed the door handle while Pancake disembarked, and then clambered into the Pinto in place of the Saint.

Thomas pulled the door closed with a definitive bump, rocking the entire vehicle on rusty shocks as Thomas shifted in the front seat, searching for Jimmy. The ignition key was inserted beneath the steering wheel, positioned so that the radio was on; the other chair had been cranked forward all the way, opening a clear route to the back bench. Thomas followed the lead, and then gasped dryly when he found Jimmy spread across the backseat in nothing but a pair of his penguin boxers, while the rest of his clothing lay in a useless, wet crumple at his feet. 

_I put a spell on you…  
_ _‘Cause you’re mine!_

The slinky notes warbling upon the stereo warbled through Thomas, thickening his blood and suffocating the air in his throat the longer he looked. A moth caught in an ornate web, Thomas was arrested by the image of Jimmy spread out so flagrantly for him. There was no mistaking the curl of Jimmy’s lip, a snigger that was smug, sexual and inviting all at once. Yet still, he quavered uselessly as Jimmy slid to the edge of the back bench, crushing his patellae against the two front seats over which Thomas was festooned. Jimmy’s tongue, plumped inside his cheek, won Thomas’s attention as he neared, and was the one aspect of the blond’s anatomy that dominated him as Jimmy drew him in for another kiss. Jimmy’s hands fumbled penuriously for Thomas, starved for the rosy warmth that stained his pale skin. Oft admired for his cold elegance, Thomas didn’t understand the wild heat that surged with each fingerprint Jimmy left upon him: he was alive with a youthful ardor that no one else had ever inspired within.

There was a fumble for the hem of Thomas’s soaked shirt, which slapped his flesh red as Jimmy wrangled it over Thomas’s head. Then Jimmy’s rough hands were at Thomas’s belt, jerking the buckle apart, flicking the buttons with enough force to tear one off the fabric. He purred to find Thomas naked beneath the garment, teasing with little nips and kisses, while Thomas battled for control of Jimmy’s writhing form. Barely able to pin Jimmy between a wrist at the small of his back and his own abdomen, Thomas wrestled his way into the back of the Pinto. His weight fell upon Jimmy, who crumpled easily beneath Thomas as he was thrown against the seat. Bare-chested and ensnared by the waistband of his trousers, which were caught around his legs, Thomas settled upon Jimmy’s lap. He kicked one foot free, pushing that knee into the crease between the seat and Jimmy’s bottom.

“You fall for the easiest bait, Barrow,” Jimmy rasped into Thomas’s ear. Thomas responded by ordering him to shut up, and then bit the crux where Jimmy’s neck sloped into his trapezius, gently suckling the tan flesh until Jimmy begged and moaned for him. 

_You better stop the things you do!  
_ _I ain’t lyin’ – no I ain’t lyin’!_

Just when Thomas thought he’d won, he was shoved backwards. Crucified against the two front seats again, he barely had time to control Jimmy before the blond’s hands had met Thomas’s hipbones, arresting him with tight biceps and a look that smoldered. “You’re mine, big boy,” Jimmy announced, his breath hot upon Thomas’s eager sex, which wept and strained in frustration that Jimmy’s lips had only just grazed it; “All mine.”

“And you talk too much,” Thomas gasped, raking one hand through yellow hair that gleamed silver in the moonlight, while his other remained flattened against the underside of the roof – at best, meager support as the head of his cock met Jimmy’s plush, swollen lips. After a few teasing prompts, Jimmy allowed Thomas to fuck his mouth, and the accusation was quickly forgotten. Thomas felt as though he was riding lightning with each penetrating stroke, hardly able to contain his pleasure the deeper Jimmy swallowed him. He wanted desperately to cum, to claim ownership of Jimmy by holding his chin while orgasm shook him, yet still humbled enough to attempt waiting. All of it was blessed torture.

The strongest of wills was no use: Jimmy gagged a little when Thomas climaxed, though he remained eager to lick Thomas clean in the throes of the breakdown. Thomas could barely stand to watch Jimmy lap at the juncture between his thighs, and was quick to bat him away in a fluster. As Jimmy fell against the backseat, Thomas grabbed him by one shoulder to flip him the other way round. With a long purr, Jimmy steadied himself on bent knees as Thomas pushed him forward enough that he was folded over the top of the bench, arms flung out for support over their luggage in the boot. One of Pancake’s toys squeaked disruptively beneath the heel of Jimmy’s hand as Thomas yanked Jimmy’s boxers over his engorged erection, which, heavy with tension, rapped against the leather padding with every command Thomas made.

Then, with Jimmy poised so vulnerably, Thomas bent to kiss the asterisks tattooed to Jimmy’s shoulder blade, and then each bony ridge in his spine, carefully working his way to the dimple just above his buttocks. Jimmy shuddered beneath his lips, skin flush with blood and damp with Thomas’s saliva. Thomas’s mouth grazed the flexed muscle, tongue dipping low enough to tease Jimmy with a little probe, which sunk deep enough to call another groan from Jimmy. He hardly cared where they were, or that the time wasn’t the most opportune: Thomas wanted to lick Jimmy to pleasure, and then throttle him with sex so passionate, neither of them would be able to stand it.

Entrenched in the scent of Jimmy and his semen, Thomas finished Jimmy off with a long, languid caress of the tongue that elicited the most delicious of sounds from Jimmy’s throat. Thomas traced the curvature where Jimmy’s arse met his thigh, kissing his way to the hollow of one knee before shifting to the other, and then back over the planes of Jimmy’s back. He adored the way Jimmy’s finely sculpted musculature trembled with the slightest contact, or how he squealed with maddening joy at the tickle of Thomas’s stubble against his flesh. Trapped facedown between the press of Thomas’s body and the seat, the upholstery of which was now smeared with cum, Jimmy thrust back against Thomas with aching desire.  

Jimmy grunted, frustrated by Thomas’s slow ministrations: “For pity’s sake, big boy!”

Already sucking three of his fingers, Thomas barely had to be told twice. His own cock heaved up against Jimmy’s flank, Thomas couldn’t look away as he guided a pioneering digit into his lover. Jimmy hissed, at once throwing his arms akimbo along the crest of the seat, nose crushed upon the contour of his bicep. He panted at the intrusion, strangled by his thirst for Thomas, who wilted to see Jimmy in such a state. With the rattle of warm rain upon the Pinto’s top and summer love within, Thomas had forgotten how to frown, and gasped with satisfaction at the explicit preview of his zeal. He fumbled across the length of Jimmy’s arm to clutch his hand, touching his forehead to Jimmy’s tattooed scapula to hear the tempo of his name.

“Don’t tire of me yet,” Thomas heaved in a breath that clouded upon his lips. Eyes squinted enough to elicit a salty trickle, Thomas gnashed his teeth on the crux of a canine, slamming the full girth of his wet fingers into Jimmy. “Please, not yet….”

Jimmy moaned desperately in reply, resurrecting from his position over the seat only to melt beneath the weight of Thomas’s passion. He was trembling, a sensation which Thomas was acutely aware of every time his knuckles tensed within him, but it had no bearing on his desire. Such an observation gave Thomas the bluster to draw back, the press of his fingers replaced by the head of his cock. He released Jimmy’s hand to shove his shoulder downward; his soiled digits glided across Jimmy’s belly, grasping after the punished erection that had been trapped between Jimmy’s body and the leather. Ecstasy disseminated through Thomas as he mounted Jimmy, sinking deeper into the other boy with rhythmic progression. Thomas threw himself backwards, entwined between the two front seats he’d spooled his arms around and the back bench upon which he knelt; straddling his lap, Jimmy sat forcefully on Thomas’s dick, impaling himself decadently as Thomas’s hips rose to meet him – again and again, roughly, slowly, _agonizingly_.

“You behave like quite the little slut,” Thomas informed Jimmy through staggered rasps. He’d slowed his own labor to find that Jimmy liked being in control of their pace. As it was, he was tense with the libidinous tremor of orgasm, which threatened to rule him at any moment – especially with the way Jimmy had chosen to dominate him. In the gold-tinted azure, just the implication of Jimmy’s rutting form, his tensed back muscles and his beautiful buttocks split upon Thomas’s cock, was enough to inspire the ultimate euphoria. He could feel its wet precursor lubricating Jimmy’s work already.

“What can I say? I like bein’ fucked,” Jimmy gasped down at the luggage in the boot. As if to prove his point, he slammed himself ardently into Thomas’s thick erection and then screwed Thomas full of dirty desire with a sensuous gyration. “An’ I _really_ like bein’ fucked by _you_ ,” Jimmy added, lifting himself just enough to tease before giving it back to Thomas just a little bit deeper.

Just as the bluesy interlude on the radio reached a fever pitch, Thomas howled wildly into the night, and came to such fruition, he quaked from the very force of it.

_I put a spell on you; I put a spell on you…._

Jimmy wasn’t very much longer. Winching himself up onto a bent elbow for extra power, he drove himself to completion with a few more backwards propulsions, all through which he chanted Thomas’s praises. His rugged panting was offset by the added chorus of barking just outside the car, where Pancake, impatient now that he’d finished his outdoor business, was anxiously pacing.

“Goddammit, big boy, get _on_!” Jimmy growled. Thomas didn’t care whether Jimmy was addressing him or the dog, and instead focused on the pinch of Jimmy’s shoulder blades as he shuddered with rapture. He rearranged himself so that his abdomen was flush with the curve of Jimmy’s spine, where he blissfully lingered as he waited for Jimmy to catch his wind and settle down from the heights of their lovemaking.

Once the waking world had returned to both of them, they set about to scrubbing up their mess and redressing as hastily as possible. Jimmy let Pancake back into the Pinto once he’d pulled his underpants back on, and then foisted a discarded sock into the animal’s slobbery jowls, which he then used to mop up the residue of his passion from the leather seatback. Thomas, meanwhile, hitched his trousers back up and found his rumbled polo. Perched in the driver’s cockpit, he toyed with the elephant bobble that dangled from the Pinto’s engine key and fought the temptation to rev it up before a single Bristolian had noticed they’d come and gone. He wiped a swathe of condensation off the window, which was cool with rain, and peered into the sparse neighborhood that surrounded them. It slept as though trouble didn’t haunt every shadow in the world.   

A commotion from the back bombarded the cricket-laced night. Thomas glanced up at the rearview mirror just in time to see a puff of fur wriggle its way from nose to tail as Pancake shook out his wet coat. Shards of water spritzed through the electric gold spilt upon the rear window and all over the fresh shirt that had ensnared Jimmy’s arms. “Goddammit, Pancake!” Jimmy roared as his eyes emerged through the collar. Thomas covered his mouth with the back of one hand and chortled marvelously.

“You laugh,” Jimmy harrumphed, “but once this furry lard bucket drips all over you, you’ll change your tune!” He scurrilously unfurled the garment to his waist.

“Is that why you’re wearin’ me shirts now?” Thomas observed dryly in the rearview. In the thin light, he could just make out one of his button-ups, two sizes large, wrinkled and hanging loose from Jimmy’s broad shoulders. He had filched it out of Thomas’s case, which crowned the luggage pile in the boot.

“Nah,” shrugged Jimmy, still devilish in the moonglow; “That’s owt to do with me likin’ how you smell.” Then, lifting a curled finger in Thomas’s direction, he added, “Now get back ‘ere. It’s right parky.”

Jimmy crowded Pancake to one side of the car, curling up with the animal to make space for Thomas. For a dithering moment, Thomas’s toyed again with the elephant dangling from Jimmy’s keys, still considering the wisdom in waiting the night out. He feared the consequences that might incubate in the wee hours without him. His situation remained ominous enough, and he was tired: he wanted to put an end to it all and rest in his grave. Except – except when he looked at Jimmy, and in his face, he found peace.

“Oy, what’re you gawpin’ at?”

The timber of Jimmy’s voice revived Thomas to the present. Jimmy was combing his hair out of his face with fingers that then traced an earlobe, followed the crinkles framing one eye and the poise of his lips. Spellbound, Thomas watched Jimmy and mumbled, “Just you.”  

“Well, _don’t_ ,” Jimmy huffed, squirming with Pancake as they tried to find a comfortable arrangement. Eventually, he settled with Pancake slung through the yoke of his arms, which were circled affectionately around the dog’s neck.

His decision made for him, Thomas switched the ignition off and removed the keys. He tripped over Jimmy’s legs as he slipped into the unoccupied nook on the opposite side of the car, and hunkered down in the corner begot by the bench and the Pinto’s outer shell. Almost immediately, Jimmy shifted from Pancake’s half of the car to Thomas’s, wordlessly sinking against the contour of Thomas’s form, mobile in hand. Thomas pretended not to spy on the screen illuminated between Jimmy’s twiddling thumbs, but his ego would not permit it: he shamelessly watched as Jimmy opened Instagram and uploaded a photograph of Thomas behind the wheel, which he’d surreptitiously taken mere moments ago. He feigned ignorance as Jimmy typed out a caption to match the starry image.

 _‘Because I never knew just how much I wanted you to stay.’_  

Clasping Jimmy to him, Thomas studied the rain through the Pinto’s windscreen as it cleansed Bristol and the machinations of his dulled heartbeat. Maybe this morning would be better than the last.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's come back for this story! I hope this chapter was enjoyable for you :) 
> 
> The two songs referenced in this chapter are 'Drive' by the Cars and Nina Simone's version of 'I Put A Spell On You'.


	20. Manchester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas returns home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is. THE END.

 

Despite a late, languid start, the rain tailed the Pinto with unnecessary persistence along their northern route, almost like it was racing to mingle with the grumpy weather already waiting for them in Manchester. The monsoon bucketed down with such fervor, it was impossible to see further than two feet beyond the Pinto’s headlamps. Jimmy drove so slowly, it seemed like the gutter water was rolling at a better clip, while gales strong enough to whip the telegraph wires like jump ropes added to the rather dramatic homecoming. The damnable note of humorousness that Thomas had developed since first alighting the Pinto came out forcefully: “Are you bein’ careful, or are you just stallin’, like?” he quipped, lifting a well-sculpted brow. 

The incessant mumble of water pellets cracking upon the Pinto’s roof packed Jimmy’s silent reply. Thomas didn’t pursue the topic, despite the moody grunt that rumbled in the back of his throat, and returned to staring at the rain. Through the flipping wipers and glass blotted with fog, Thomas squinted into the vaporous gray, wherein Manchester swam. Even though they had breached the city’s outskirts, the scenery was dead and drowning in dirty water. Thomas hated how much he hated looking at it.

“I should’ve been able to fit in here,” Thomas commented while they sat at a dreary intersection, halted by a stoplight. On the corner, there was a pub outside of which two women were holding hands beneath a shared umbrella, a cigarette shuttling back and forth between them. In the window of the establishment behind them, a telltale rainbow flag marked the territory as a welcoming one. For as long as he’d lived there, Thomas had never taken the opportunity to explore the nightlife that was attuned to his particular scene: he’d always been far too frightened of what his father would do to him if he was caught. As it was, his Oxford forays with Philip had toed a dangerous line up until the incident with Edward – or so he frequently reasoned with himself. If only it hadn’t been so easy to masquerade as someone else all those years, even if all he had to show for it was a closet-sized hell of his own design.

“Couldn’ve said the same thing about Yorkshire,” Jimmy replied, examining his hair in the rearview mirror. He twirled a thick weft of blond fringe around his index finger, and then patted down the frazzled ends that stuck up on top. “A place is only as good as you make it,” he shrugged as the light flipped from red to green. Squelching rubber whined upon the tarmac as Jimmy depressed the accelerator, and he added, “That, or you stand back and let it fuck you.”

Though he was busy chomping a squeaky whale plush, Pancake barked in agreement from the back.

“ _Or_ ,” Thomas interjected, “you rise up and take back what should’ve been dead yours all along.”

Jimmy cast a smugly pleased expression at Thomas, his lip curled back enough to reveal the endearing gap between his front teeth. “You’re a real punk rocker, y’know that, Thomas?” he observed, raking a heavy-lidded gaze from the slick part in Thomas’s hair to the flex of his legs over the seat. “I like that about you.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Thomas said, though he still licked his lips.

Thomas directed Jimmy back to Collyhurst, haunted by the weirdness of pulling up to his father’s house in Jimmy’s Pinto. His neighborhood was even more working class than that of Jimmy’s father, burnished with the sad remnants of an industrial era long since vanished. To the right was the mechanic’s garage attributed to the infamous Branson family, and to the left, a refrigeration business. The flat that Thomas had gestated in sat above a shuttered horologist shop with a viridian door and windows caked in dust. Jimmy cut the engine and leaned back in his seat, his hands turned inwardly upon each thigh as he waited for Thomas to indicate their next move, but Thomas was restrained. Quietly, he sat with his chin upturned and his index fingers steepled over his dark mouth as he contemplated the question of his future behind closed eyes. Lost in thought, his father’s bellowing weighed upon him with thunder and consequence that he couldn’t quite describe. Outside, the clotted clouds continued to weep their sorry welcome.

It was Pancake’s claustrophobia that eventually incited action. Jimmy accidentally kicked Thomas in the belly as he tried to squeeze his way back to his dog, an impact which jarred Thomas back to the wobbly little Ford. Rotating enough to help propel Jimmy with a push upon his bottom, Thomas watched as Jimmy splatted face-first into Pancake, who yowled in shock. Squishing himself next to his giant pet, Jimmy went digging through the boot with his rump in the air – a teasing reminder of their previous night together. Thomas scratched his bottom lip beneath his teeth, wanting to present Jimmy with a plan, but also far too suffocated by images of Jimmy’s bare, sweaty back in the dewy starlight to formulate words. He was completely lost until Jimmy retrieved the matching mackintoshes he kept for himself and Pancake, as well as the lewd hippo brolly, which he offered to Thomas as a sort of afterthought.

“I really just want to see if Tom’s in,” Thomas said, accepting the umbrella distractedly. “Not certain it’s the best idea to go pokin’ round me dad’s place – though I’d sort of like to.”

“What’s it matter if we do? You’re here to present yourself to the powers that be anyway, aren’t you?” Jimmy shrugged as he wrangled Pancake into his doggie mac.

Secretly, Thomas thought it was rather endearing how Pancake’s raincoat was nearly the same size as Jimmy’s, but was embarrassed to admit it aloud when he was supposed to be worrying about far graver matters. The most he could do was agree with a simple, “Yeah,” though he remained quite preoccupied by anything but. After the pleasure of Jimmy’s company, he’d forgotten how to properly brood, lie and cheat – qualities that had once defined him quite prominently. He assumed it was a malady of love, for he’d never been sick enough with it that his own self-preservation was unimportant. The downside was that it left him rather confounded on how to solve his predicament without destroying someone else – someone like _Jimmy –_ in the process. It was one thing to justify his own flight, but another to detail Jimmy’s completely circumstantial role in it: he saw only accusations of premeditation and guilt, nevermind what Mathew thought.

“I were stupid to think this would work,” Thomas eventually declared. “They like to say the law is fair, but it’s not. Who in their right mind is goin’ to take the word of the village pouf over the beloved clergyman? It’s bollocks!”

“Too right – bollocks, it is!” Jimmy rejoined, now sitting next to Pancake as he clicked together the snaps of his own mac. “Who’s goin’ to hang the boy whose father tortured him behind closed doors all his life?”

“Plenty. I’m not exactly popular round here,” Thomas deadpanned, skewered with memories of childhood ridicule and the unkind retaliation his unhappiness then inspired. By his own estimation, Thomas had done well withstanding the intolerant deluge as a youth, though it had also produced a rather bitter and cynical adult that had no recollection of who he’d been beforehand.

“You don’t give yourself credit,” Jimmy frowned, singing his hood up over his coiffure. He rapped Thomas’s seat impatiently: “Now let’s get on before we’re washed away.”  

In a tizzy of movement, Thomas kicked open his door, extending a hand out to pop open the umbrella and dart beneath its canopy, while Jimmy leveraged the other seat down to clamber out with Pancake in tow. They all rejoined on the pavement, clustered beneath the hippo umbrella as they cut through the rain towards the horology shop. Thomas fumbled with a key that had all but vanished from his pocket since his initial escape, while Pancake ventured back into the downpour to taste the falling sky. The racket of Jimmy sloshing through the downpour to get at Pancake was the loudest commotion on the street, which was otherwise eerily quiet for an inner-city thoroughfare.

The creak of unloved hinges summoned Jimmy and Pancake back to Thomas’s side, and the trio entered the deserted store together. Translucent shadows smeared the windowpanes upon the floor as they walked towards the back, where a staircase to the flat above was tucked away. With the umbrella hooked over one wrist, Thomas moved without much pause, already familiar with the forgotten clocks and cuckoos of a shopkeeper that was no longer alive to wind them, but Jimmy lingered with curiosity.

“How long has all this been sittin’ here?” Jimmy asked, transfixed by a grandfather clock whose spindly hands were stuck on three quarters to four o’clock. “Seems a shame.”

“I dunno,” Thomas shrugged with a swipe and a flare to signal the lighting of a cigarette. Thomas pulled heavily on the smoke, his nerves settling as the aroma of tobacco mingled with the musty stench that cloyed the ether. “The son was s’posed to take up the reins when the old clockmaker snuffed it, but he never turned up,” Thomas explained, manifesting beside Jimmy with catlike stealth. “We’ve been passin’ through a graveyard since I were in secondary school.”

Jimmy hummed thoughtfully, fingers stretching for the unmoving clock hands like a pulse might revitalize it. He barely grazed the implements when another touch fell upon the back of his hand, where Thomas had laid his fingers.

“Believe me, I’ve tried,” Thomas murmured, though he almost believed all that the clock had been missing was Jimmy’s attention. He took the cigarette from his lips and leaned in close, eyelashes darkening the atmosphere as Jimmy flooded his senses. In such oblivion, Thomas imagined the air clean of troubles – air that came from somewhere happy and warm.

“Hello?” an Irish lilt cut through the gloom.

A jolt struck the pair of them, exacerbated by Pancake’s barking. Jimmy automatically grasped after Pancake, but relief surged through Thomas as the silhouette in the doorway shifted into that of Tom Branson. He stubbed his cigarette out upon the wainscoting and discarded the filter amongst the frozen clocks, careless of how rude it was, and marched purposefully towards his dear friend. Mindless of Tom’s soaked coat, Thomas allowed Tom to fling his arms about him, lassoing him into a fierce hug.

“By God, Thomas, look at the state of you!” Tom enthused as he leaned back, still clutching Thomas at the elbow. “I’m so relieved you’re well.”

“’Well’ is a relative term,” Thomas groused, though a quick glance at Jimmy made him rescind the notion. He stepped away from Tom, who was completely drenched and was getting water all over Thomas. He frowned, asking, “How’d you even know we were here?”

Tom shrugged haphazardly: “I heard the dog, so I looked outside just as you were pushing in.” He surveyed Thomas once more, like he was refamiliarizing himself with a face he’d nearly forgotten. “No one else in the world has business here but you. By process of elimination anyway.”

At the mere mention, Thomas wished for a new cigarette. He liberated them from his pocket and repeated his ritual, glancing briefly at Jimmy through the spark and flare of his lighter. Jimmy’s lips were puckered with continued inquisitiveness, a well-manicured eyebrow arched high. Tom caught Thomas’s lingering stare, at once catching on to the implication wafting between them, and clapped his hands with insidious glee: “Oh, and this must be your Jimmy,” he smirked, studying Jimmy’s attributes; “Of course he is. I’d know your taste anywhere, Thomas.”

“Har har, very droll,” Thomas said from behind a veil of cigarette smoke.

“Isn’t it?” Tom grinned. He had a very charming way about him, with a warm, round face and a dimpled smile.

“D’ya… have a minute? Catch us up and that?” Thomas asked, trailing smoke from the corner of his mouth as he turned back towards the stairs. Bravely, he mounted the first step with determination. Beneath his red trainer, the wood creaked loud enough to announce his progression as he climbed up to the upstairs flat. Behind him, there was a scramble of activity that ranged from Tom’s quick acquiescence to Pancake’s irritation that this new person had kidnapped Thomas’s focus on Jimmy. Pancake chomped down onto the hem of Tom’s coat and plopped down with weight that nearly caused Tom to trip. Jimmy huffed at Pancake, but didn’t make much of an effort to deter his stubborn pet. Instead, he rushed after Thomas, tracking his lover’s advancement up the steps with a worried eye.  

Thomas took his time with each new incriment, growing ever more uncomfortable as he remembered his escape route and the exact moment he’d lamped his father with the cricket bat snatched so impulsively off the wall. For one terrible moment, Thomas loitered, frozen with fear as he conjured the memory: a phantom of his previous self came barreling down the stairs, hastily packed case in one hand, cherry bat in the other, and ghosted straight through Thomas with a chill. He could still picture his father’s twisted body in the upstairs hall and the brackish muck that gummed his forehead. A very distinct recollection of his own mobile, forgotten on the table by the door, lingered with him; frames crooked upon the striped paper provided evidence of the struggle that had escalated between them, highlighted by the splintered glass over a photograph of Thomas as a boy, posing proudly with the first wicket he’d ever knocked over. That photo, Thomas recalled plainly, had come crashing down on the follow-through of his brutal swing.

“You alright?” Jimmy’s voice cut through the cloud of gloom and nicotine clogging the stairwell. His bony fingers manifested upon Thomas’s shoulder, startling Thomas out of a reverie he didn’t recollect falling victim to.

“Fine, fine,” Thomas murmured vaguely, pivoting on the step so that he might see Jimmy. Just the reminder of his face invigorated Thomas, who had been greeted – for the first time – with the understanding of just how much the road had changed him. Jimmy’s touch danced up to Thomas’s cheek, tethering him to the present.

“You certain?” Jimmy pressed.

“No,” Thomas gasped. The terrors in his vision blurred until Jimmy’s bright features conquered them. Rasping around a plume of cigarette smoke, Thomas mused aloud, “How did I ever manage before we met?”

“Blimey, I don’t know!” Jimmy shrugged with a cheeky grin that only made Thomas chase the question more fervently.

Jimmy elbowed his way around Thomas and finished the march upstairs with a bravado that killed all of the things that had made Thomas’s pace sluggish. Tom came next, and handed Thomas a particularly impressed look as he sidled by. Pancake was quick on Tom’s heels, defending a fictitious corner in Jimmy’s good name until he was defeated by Thomas’s scent. He shoved his snout between Thomas’s knees, keen to sniff out the most luxurious spot on Thomas’s trousers. “You’re well devious and all, Pancake!” Thomas scolded as he fought for his balance, though laughter soon infiltrated his tone.

Ahead, both Jimmy and Tom had stopped long enough to take note. “Well, he’s certainly my pup, make no mistake,” Jimmy sniggered, a jaunty hand on each hip. He stalled for a moment, visibly pleased by the comedic interaction between his two men, and then took mercy on Thomas by whistling for Pancake. The Saint’s sheer size perpetuated the levity, nearly knocking Tom down the steps as he hurried up to Jimmy in hopes of a reward. Unhelpfully, Jimmy only took more amusement out of the farce, crouching to rub Pancake down with affection. “Good boy,” Jimmy enthused, clearly proud of the trouble his pet had wrought; “Who’s my good, good, _good_ boy?”

“Bad boy, more like,” Thomas intoned as he approached the scene with Tom in tow, to which Jimmy scoffed, “Says _you_ , naughty.”

They were all crowded at the top of the stairs, where a short landing seemed to elongate for miles and miles before reaching the doorsill of Thomas’s old home. The lot of them remained still, waiting for Thomas to lead the way, key at the ready. Despite the support, Thomas still had to revamp his nerves, and smoked his cigarette to nothingness in pursuit of bravery.

The floorboards were disconcertingly talkative as he alighted the top stair, complaining as if they all had something to add about the hideous event that stained both wood and wallcovering. Another haunt that bore Thomas’s shape floated through the door, this time hemming and hawing at the mouth of the stairs like every possible conclusion was a poor one. “Just fling yourself down there and have done with it, you lavender pansy-arse,” Thomas remembered berating himself through that entire whirlwind of indecision. His skin boiled with the same discomfort he’d endured then, like peeling it off and climbing out of it was the only viable option.

“Thomas?” Jimmy’s hand again infiltrated the grip of his nightmares, surreptitiously floating around Thomas’s wrist and into the curl of his fingers. The tactile comfort Jimmy offered wasn’t quite enough to soothe Thomas’s demons, but it at least allowed him the gumption to press onwards.

With an ease Thomas almost wished against, the key fit into the lock and disengaged the tumbler. He nudged the door open with a small kick, afraid of the time rift he was about to pass through, and reentered as a pariah. Decades seemed to vaporize with each forward inch into the flat, which looked deceptively innocent, as if specters had tidied it back to the state it had been in twenty years ago, while still bearing the crude marks of his final sin. He feared the reaction Jimmy or Tom would have when they picked out the dark stain on the hall rug, where his father had hit the floor, or the remnants of destroyed vases and dishes that were certain to catch attention with a deadly glimmer. He wondered if the chair he’d pulverized in the heat of the battle was still lying on its broken back in the kitchen.

“It stinks like grannies in here,” Jimmy commented, wrinkling his nose.

“A consequence of losin’ Thomas and his Brilliantine habit,” Tom quipped, attempting to keep the mood light.

“Oh, so _that’s_ what it is,” Jimmy hummed. His dragged his gaze from the tip of Thomas’s Roman nose to the grubby red toes of his shoes.  

Thomas was only partially listening as he reverently walked to the hall table and picked up his mobile, black with no battery, but still a strange relic of the whole bloody affair. It had been sat up there in the aftermath of his flight, witness to the discovery of his father by the police, medics – the whole stupid neighborhood. He clamped down on the device, forcing himself to tense stillness lest he fling it against the wall in a fit of rage.

“I s’pose me sister’s been in and out?” Thomas assessed. He was standing at the juncture where the hall split into kitchen, dining room and parlor, surveying his surroundings with folded arms. “Real tidy,” he grumbled, uncertain why finding things put back properly sickened him so. His sister and he had never been fast friends, but the idea that she could sweep away any trace that Thomas had been alive was particularly distressing.

As if will alone could change it, he glared at the kitchen table, around which three of its four chairs stood innocuously, and a teapot he didn’t recognize served as a new centerpiece. He eulogized the missing furnishing, splintered and ugly upon the tile, with a solemn stare. A vaporous rendition of the morning Thomas had snapped glazed the scene, reviving Thomas’s self from a fortnight gone at the sink, his father at the table with the newspaper. To recall the callous words that were said about Edward came only as white noise, fizzing out the bridge between the twisting knife and the vengeful reflex of a man pushed too far. Horrified, Thomas replayed the tea service smashed upon the countertop, the chair grappled from its place and hurled with enough force to snap its beveled frame. The crudeness of their struggle, Thomas’s hands upon his father, his father’s hands upon him, as they grappled across the floor: his father had dislocated Thomas’s nose that day; Thomas had cracked it back into place in the loo at the roadside restaurant Jimmy where he’d first met Jimmy.

“Earth to Thomas – come in, Thomas,” Tom called from the parlor, though his voice was faint enough that he might as well have been on Mars.

A hand shuttled through Thomas’s vision, snapping him out of his vacuous mentality. Jimmy’s voice paired with the motion, murmuring at Thomas from a point far nearer than Tom: “You look like you’ve seen a bloody ghoul, love.”

A forgotten lump of gray cinder crumbled from the tip of his burnt-out cigarette, powdering upon the sterile floor. At once, Pancake was at Thomas’s feet, investigating whether or not the mess was the edible variety. After blankly staring down at the dog, Thomas pounded his forehead with a knuckle: “I’m sorry, come again?”

“What’re you lookin’ for?” Jimmy redirected with a bit more succinctness. “Maybe me ‘n’ Tom could help if you gave us an idea or sommat.”

As Jimmy spoke, he drifted into the parlor to stand with Tom. Thomas winced to see the pair of them focused on the blank space on the mantelpiece, which his prized cricket bat had once decorated so proudly. He forced his attention to the carpet, but all that did was illuminate the trail of destruction that had chased his father into the front hall as Thomas lunged for him, his athletic gift transmogrified into a crime.  He had to beat his hands into his face again to reawaken his sense of self, dragging frustrated nails down ashen cheeks.

“Thomas?”

This time, vocalizations from both Jimmy and Tom swirled together without distinction. Thomas had to sit at once, and hastily flung himself upon a nearby rocker, gasping at the ceiling. Immediately, Jimmy marched towards his distraught lover, but he was a few paces too slow to beat Pancake. The Saint had nuzzled his way onto Thomas’s lap, busy offering Thomas an array of soothing licks upon his hands and knees. Thomas would have never confessed it to Jimmy, but Pancake’s rough tongue upon his skin was of immeasurable comfort, and he showed his gratefulness with a surreptitious scratch or two.  

When he felt brave enough to speak, Thomas tilted the rocker forward, perked up on the edge of its wicker seat. “I had to come back and see it,” he told them as he ruffled Pancake’s fur with added gusto; “For me and all.”

“And?” Jimmy pressed, his attention still roving about. He seemed interested in the bric-a-brac that was distinctly Thomas, scanning the parlor like he was on a scavenger hunt for Thomas’s childhood. So far, he looked frustrated that the most telling thing was the neglected cricket shrine over the fireplace.

“…And….” Thomas truncated his reply when he followed Jimmy’s stare back to the mantel. Though Jimmy was left grasping at imaginary clues, Thomas saw the shelf’s former dressing in explicit detail. His crumpling of Pancake’s fur shuddered to a halt as he relived the desecration of his Oxford youth: stumbling after his father with a faucet of blood trickling from each nostril, Thomas had ripped the cherry cricket bat from its hooks on the wall, abruptly clearing the mantel of every trophy and picture frame with a wild swipe of the paddle. His father had made a dive for the crucifix in the front hall, and brandished it at Thomas like it might strike down Thomas’s unholy rage. Instead, it only aggravated it.

Replaying the final blow, Thomas winced as if the deafening crack of wood against bone had descended upon the flat once more. He forced the imagery out of his mind – albeit with some difficulty – and set upon the moment at hand. “And there are some letters from Edward I’ve got stashed in me old bedroom – if it’s been left alone,” he finished up so hastily, the phrases were sewn together into one nearly undecipherable word. “Figure it might be helpful.”

Though he’d stepped closer to the mantel to investigate more closely, Jimmy threw Thomas a frustrated look. “I thought you said you didn’t have his suicide note,” he recalled, carefully watching Thomas’s schooled features for any hint of betrayal.

“I don’t,” Thomas answered, growing slightly more confident now that he was dealing in grounding facts. “But there were signs I should’ve seen. It’s not like we were mute about our predicament. He knew just as well as me that they were tryin’ to – to _scare_ it out’ve us.”

It was Tom’s turn to interject. “Why didn’t you say somethin’ to us? We could have avoided this whole errand,” he gasped, throwing his arms in frustration.

Thomas only shrugged, nonplussed. “I only thought of it far too late,” he justified; “And it’s hardly a smokin’ gun confession or anything like that.”

“Well, I say let’s get it and get out,” Jimmy decided, rubbing his hands together as if a chill had visited him. “This place is dead creepy.”

They drifted as phantoms out of the parlor, all filing after Thomas as he led the way to the narrow staircase that reached up to the attic. The floor continued to moan in distress with the depression of each new foot upon it. At the top, Thomas clicked on a wall sconce that buzzed leccy within bulbous glass. In the wobbling light, he pushed in through the furthest door, though only Pancake followed him inside, while Jimmy and Tom loitered in the hall, waiting. Thomas could feel Jimmy’s stare upon him as he kicked aside the rug and crouched down beside his old bed, lumpy and spartan. With reverence, he then prised up a floorboard worn at the edges with practice, and reached into the dark recess it uncorked to retrieve a biscuit tin he’d stashed there in another life.

“You become quite good at duplicity when you live in this house,” Thomas announced as he popped the tin open. The dingy aroma that exuded from within attracted Pancake’s interest, though he preferred pawing at the tin on the floor once Thomas had removed the sheaf of paper hidden inside. Thomas barely noticed, too preoccupied with the epistolary revival of Edward’s ghost. He leafed through the pages, catching snippets of Edward’s torture, and reliving his own agony.

  * _Thomas, I don’t know what I ought to do. I don’t possess the good graces of your cynicism, and it leaves me quite desolate. How’s it to be when God himself can’t stand to hear our shared breaths? How’s it to be when we’re both lonely?_


  * _I do wish we could lunch the way we used to – you know, without the whispers and the sidelong glances whenever we’re seen together. Let’s leave the street, just the two of us. We could find some café on the other side of town and sit close to one another. We could know each other again._


  * _Thomas – I’m frightened. I think only of things no man ought to, and it absolutely frightens me to death._



Tom cut through the void with a question, dragging Thomas back to the safety of the present. “Did you find it?” he pressed, leaning in the doorframe with concern scrunching his expression.

The hall lamp licked Tom’s heels, outlining his lonely shape in the hall. Thomas glanced up and stared at him blankly, mystified as to what made the image so uncanny. Then it dawned upon him: “Where’s Jimmy?” he asked, crunching the missives between locked fists. Panic engulfed him as he clambered to his feet and repeated the question. Pancake abandoned the biscuit tin the instant Thomas stumbled towards Tom, his canine wiles on high alert.

“Oh, I… I’m not certain,” Tom slowly enunciated as he stared at the empty gap where Jimmy had once been. He was at once antsy, like an unmonitored Jimmy was bound to dig up trouble. He flipped around just in time to see Jimmy go snooping into one of the other upstairs rooms. Pancake trounced after his master, just as curious to learn about Thomas’s world. Thomas was late to follow, and only stumbled back into the hall just as Jimmy vanished into the garret that his father used to dwell in. But while Thomas dithered over whether he liked the prospect of Jimmy becoming so intimate with his past, Pancake came skittering back towards him. Tom tried to reach for the loping animal, but there was no one Pancake wanted but Thomas. His howling streaked after him as he careened into Thomas; in his wake, Jimmy was backing out of the bedroom, a most unexpected sound soiling the quiet.

“Who let that mutt in here!?” bellowed a most dissonant voice, frightening Jimmy a good four paces back from the door. Horrified, Thomas recognized the unfriendly chords of his father from within, and could only stare at Tom in flabbergast as his longtime friend hung his head and sighed.

“You _knew_?” Thomas gasped at Tom, his red, ruby lips wilted in dismay.

“Well, I thought we’d be havin’ _tea_ by now, if I’m honest,” Tom protested to a vacant patch of gloom. He pivoted round to catch Thomas storming by Jimmy and into the recesses of his father’s room. “I was goin’ to wait until we’d got jolly in our cups to mention it….”

But Thomas’s ears were aflame, burning with the unhappy shock of finding his father where he’d least expected to. Instinct sent him flying to Jimmy’s side, gussied up with a protective urge inspired by Edward’s letters and the determination to rescue Jimmy from the same fate. He burst into the little room like he’d just kicked in the door, glowering at the old man sat up in bed with cranial dressings. It disgusted Thomas how few things had changed since he’d left, even though it was hardly a fortnight ago that he’d last stood where he was. The same lace curtains drooped over the dormer, rustling the pages of the same Common Prayer Book upon the bedside table. Similarly, the tomes crammed upon the shelf by the desk kept the same lean Thomas remembered, except their spines looked a bit dulled by sediment after such neglect.

“Who’s that, eh?” grumbled Father Barrow, clutching the blankets like they would protect him from the intruder. He squinted without the aid of the bifocals that lay atop the prayer book.

“It’s your son, you horrible bastard,” Thomas spat. Just the sight of his father got him whipped up, and for one vindictive moment, he reveled in the proof of his work with the cricket bat, and only wished he’d had the stones to finish the job.

“I can see _that_ ,” Father Barrow sniffed as he groped for his spectacles. He clumsily pushed them over his nose, which bore the same strong profile as Thomas’s. “I meant that bloody dog,” he rephrased, glaring around the cut of Thomas’s form to frown at Pancake. “You know I’ve forbidden you from ever keepin’ a pet, sunshine.”

“Good job it’s not up to you, isn’t it?” Thomas snapped, all the while worrying Edward’s letters in nervous hands. “But don’t you worry. I’m not here to chat,” Thomas went on; “I got what I came for, and now you can just sit back and wait for ‘em to throw the barmy book at you, like.”

“For what?” the reverend scoffed. His gaze shifted from Pancake to Jimmy, who was hanging back on anxious toes. “Lettin’ you keep a pet?” Father Barrow derided, ripping Jimmy’s manhood limb from limb with just a look. Jimmy folded under the pressure, hesitant to pick up his hung head lest he find the same glare waiting for him, and Thomas hated his father all the more for it. Anyone who dared to upset Jimmy deserved the full gamut of Thomas’s retribution.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Thomas accused darkly. Despite the stormy weather brewing in Thomas’s very aura, he still found himself tripped to his knees, shoved right back into the same corner he’d occupied his whole life.  

“I don’t think I do,” Father Barrow said with irritating calm, to which Tom’s harsh whisper buzzed in Thomas’s ear like a fly he couldn’t quite swat away: “He can’t recall it, remember?” he hissed loud enough for even Jimmy to hear. The reminder cued an ache in Thomas’s knuckles, fingers twitching for the handle of his bat like he could solve his problems with just one more hearty swing.

“I don’t have time for this crock of shite,” Thomas decided with skin so hot, he thought he would explode.

He whirled on his foot and stomped out of the room to sit in his own and glare at the laundry lines flapping their pennants over the back alley. Tom hung back on the stairs, but Jimmy answered Thomas’s unspoken call with careful encroachment. He tiptoed into the room with a silence that didn’t usually behoove him and perched on the edge of the tiny bed, where quilts and blankets crinkled beneath his weight. Beside him, Thomas sat cross-legged at the foot of the cot, his delicate chin perched upon an open palm as he stared out the window.

After a few moments, Pancake trotted into the room, tail flipped up in the air. As he laid his head upon his master’s knee, Jimmy thought aloud, “Maybe it’s a sign to just let it all go.”

“And run and hide? Tch,” Thomas grunted; “I bet that’s just what he’d like, innit.”

Jimmy didn’t try to argue the point, and instead just took to scratching Pancake with neurotic tenacity. The very sight of him cured the pains that ailed Thomas, and a smile etched evolved despite itself. Perhaps the point wasn’t his righteous exodus after all, but rather what he’d found along the way. Somewhere, his lonely walk next to no one had become a comradery of two kindred spirits lost upon the road. Meeting Jimmy had taught him how to hope, and in that lovely moment, Thomas understood hope was the best thing to have left. Hope had found Jimmy, and Jimmy had saved him.

Turning away from the window, Thomas readjusted his position so that he could face Jimmy’s hunched back. In the pissing gloom, which painted rivulets of light upon Jimmy’s chartreuse mackintosh, he could picture just where Jimmy’s tattoo marked his skin, the placement of each tiny freckle and the sculpt of his sinew. Thomas pulled his knees to his chest, stared down at the mud the trainers had caked on the duvet, and asked, “D’ya think… stuff happens for good reason? That we were meant for this and all?”

“If we ain’t meant for this, then what else is there?” Jimmy shrugged, deploying the answer as if it was the only natural response. “If I ain’t meant for you….” He let the thought dwindle, replacing verbiage with a glassy look that stretched the boundaries of Thomas’s affection for him. Love might have been difficult for Jimmy to pronounce, but little by little, Thomas had learned that there were other ways to look for those sentiments; little by little, Thomas had discovered just how much Jimmy thought of him.

“Is that why I’m here, then?” Thomas wondered belligerently. “Is it why _we’re_ here?”

“No time to be getting’ all existential, big boy,” Jimmy commented. His shoulder obscured his profile, but the dimple in his cheek couldn’t hide the shape of his mood. “Just say your bit and then say _goodbye_.”

Despite a round of justifications otherwise, Thomas knew Jimmy was correct. He scooted around Jimmy and deposited Edward’s letters into his care. Then, he glided back onto his feet to cross the hall to his father’s quarters once more, careful to avoid Tom’s eye lest it make him falter. Pancake nipped at his trousers as he moved, which volunteered extra fortitude as he threw open the door forcefully enough to make the picture flap against the plaster when he entered. Then, his grip sweaty upon the knob, Thomas faced his father one last time.

“I’m sorry about the state you’re in – truly,” Thomas began, lifting his posture so that he could feel even taller than he already was. “But it weren’t my fault that it happened. Not after the trouble you caused me an’ mine.”

Still propped up against a milieu of bedding and pillows, Father Barrow regarded Thomas with a blank stare and folded hands that were abnormally still upon the blankets. “Nobody thinks that it was,” the vicar said in a tone that alchemized both softness and indifference.

Still, to look at him was to find him incredibly small, and far frailer than Thomas was comfortable admitting. He flattened his lips to conceal the weight fixed at the corners, grumbling, “You mean nobody thinks it were my fault? I’m a little old for jokes, _dad_.”

Father Barrow was indignant. “You never were particularly funny, were you,” he frowned, reminding Thomas at once why they never got on. It was the face that had schooled Thomas in unkindness, a talent which had bloomed into the single defense against a man who repeatedly found everything about Thomas to be a spectacular failure. Thomas took it on the chin and boldly retorted, “You, neither.”

But as the dialog dried, the stagnant air made Thomas want to gag. The dispassion in his father was easily the most unpalatable thing, and the longer they occupied the silence, the more certain Thomas was that there was nothing he could say that might mend the fragments between them. He had not been prepared for such an abrupt reunion, but then again, he wasn’t positive that it would have been much different in hospital with an audience to revel in his public humiliation. He decided to take Jimmy’s advice and have done with it – the sooner, the better.

“Well, go on, then,” Thomas dared. His arms flapped out wide and then let them collapse against his sides with stiff elbows and lax wrists, bemoaning, “Let’s hear you gloat over how I’m about to get me just desserts. Your sick and indecent sonny contra mundi.”

“If you’re referrin’ to this most recent edition of your typically overdramatic episodes, then aye – I’ve got owt to say about _that_ ,” Father Barrow said without humor or irony. He gestured to a lonely stool by the footboard, indicating that Thomas should sit, and waited through an awkward moment through which Thomas only trembled with outrage before retracting the offer. The good reverend folded his hands again, his joints so stiff, they practically creaked when he moved. He caught Thomas dead in the eye and said, “The police were looking for you for days. They’d assumed the worst had happened to you after they saw what had been done me. Imagine how it was for _me_ to discover you’d only just done a runner, not been beaten to death by some toughs in an alley somewhere. It were almost embarrassing to realize you’d just done it to yourself – as _usual_.”

Thomas rolled his eyes, “Of course it’s about you. How dare I forget.” The floor beneath him surged like he imagined it might if he’d stepped off the edge of the Clifton Bridge and plummeted into the night. The stars would fall upwards and drown his heartache.

Father Barrow had little patience for any of Thomas’s criticism. He met his son with an even-keeled stare, a collision of aluminum iris upon steel. “I don’t understand why you’re here,” he frowned, “if all’s you want to do is complain. After all I’ve done for you.”

“You’ve done nothing for me,” Thomas seethed. “And if you have to ask why I got fed up, then – then _fuck you_.” It felt incredible to expel the rage, especially when Pancake added his support with a growl.  

“I don’t know why you’re gettin’ all riled up over a break-in. You weren’t the one left for dead. You _ran_ ,” the vicar cried. He launched himself forward in a flurry of irritation, though the exercise clearly was too much for him. He swooned forward, cupping his face in discomfort.

Such frailty was something Thomas was unused to witnessing in his father, and it affected the furious zeal that normally kept him separate from caring. It was so surreal, Thomas almost forgot how to hate him. Worse still, it emphasized the apparent gap in his father’s memory, like proof that the fable was true. Even as he stuttered over a response, nausea gripped Thomas enough that he had to finally sit down upon the stool at the foot of the bed. “I… I were afraid,” he murmured, his gaze flicking upwards only to dart away in shame every time he caught sight of his father. Rubbing his palms together, Thomas jiggled one knee in consternation as he tried to piece together his next statement.

“I know,” Father Barrow said so succinctly, Thomas was startled to attention.

“You… do?” he wondered, staring at his father like he’d never seen him before. Pancake hurried to Thomas’s side, whimpering with concern. In his peripheral, Thomas noticed Jimmy and Tom lingering in the hall: particularly, Jimmy looked like he was trying to decide if hanging back or barging in was the better course of action, while Tom attempted to hush the blond’s mood with pantomime gestures and meaningful stares.

“Aye,” Barrow nodded, stroking the dressings wrapped around his skull. “You’d have stayed long enough to finish the job if you were even half a man.”

The maudlin in Thomas had drained through his toes, leaving a pale and confused creature behind. Thomas clutched at Pancake’s fur as he tried to clamor for a fitting reply. The best he could come up with was another befuddled question: “But I thought you told the coppers it were a break-in?”

“Aye, I did,” the vicar agreed with a continued calm that only tangled Thomas up further. “I also told them that me son had run away on retreat – that he were tryin’ to reacquaint himself with God and that he’d come home when he were good and ready. For what that was worth, anyway.”  

The sensation of dropping into the Avon Gorge surged around Thomas, who fearfully gripped Pancake like the very floorboards had peeled apart and thrown him into a freefall. It was as though his porcelain body bore contrast to the paleness that had fogged his old life, noticed by his father for the first time he could ever recollect. Despite the condescension that still lined Barrow’s tone, Thomas had never before experienced the security of being shielded by a parent who loved him, and it left him mesmerized. When he finally hit the bottom and found himself back upon the same stool at his father’s bedside, his trembling voice accommodated only the simplest of ventures: “I just want to know – just _why_?”

“You perhaps have grown out of my reach,” said Father Barrow without pause, “but you’re still my boy, and I’m supposed to protect you.”

There was nothing else Thomas could have asked that would have been more revealing. Perhaps the vicar really had been redecorated by the head trauma, but Thomas chose to believe otherwise. Strange and mysterious as Heaven itself, Thomas similarly understood his father’s actions to be a kind of love. Pancake whimpered in Thomas’s arms as Thomas folded him close and wiped his wet and salty cheeks in his fur. He kept his face pressed against the dog for as long as it took to blot his sniveling, afraid that he was going to look foolish in front of Jimmy and his father and the whole world if he was caught crying. A boxing champ knocked down by an ornery old man’s words, Thomas was weak, beaten and amazed.

A touch upon Thomas’s shoulder dragged him back to his father’s garret. He lifted his nose from Pancake and followed the crook of Jimmy’s arm over his shoulder and up to his sunny face. Jimmy rubbed Thomas in small circles, much like soothing a small child, and held onto him like he was trying to keep Thomas above the undertow. Thomas reached out for Jimmy with the intention to go to him, inconsequential about how much of his affection was on display for his father. Unlike times gone by, Thomas was proud to offer himself exactly as he was.

“Is there anythin’ you need?” Thomas asked, glancing back at his father. He stuttered over his next breath, still not quite able to assign a paternal epithet to the broken man in the bed. As it was, he already felt brave enough in keeping Jimmy as near as possible, flagrantly displaying their relationship with knotted fingers and entwined wrists.

“I’ll rely on your sister for that, thank you,” Father Barrow retorted, clipped in tone as he stared off into a far corner of the room. Thomas supposed that they’d overcome enough obstacles for one day, even if blatant favoritism wasn’t one of them. “You can see yourselves out. And take that insufferable beast with you,” he added without turning to face Thomas, though Thomas managed to glimpse the delicate poise of the reverend’s countenance in the mirror on the other wall. He wasn’t certain the label for such an expression, but it was one that would be branded to his memory for the rest of his days.

Tom was halfway down the attic stairs when Thomas, Jimmy and Pancake caught up with him. They filed out of the house in silent but efficient unison, where they surrendered to the rain once more. Thomas popped the hippo brolly over their heads to shield them as they splashed over to Tom’s, though it only scooped droplets as it parachuted behind them. But with skin that was rather suited to the grumpy weather, he didn’t particularly mind the refreshment.

Tom waved the group into a side door with an ‘Open For Business’ sign hanging in its window. Almost immediately upon entering the Branson garage, the familiar stench of chassis grease and brake dust tickled Thomas’s nostrils, transporting him back to the days he and Tom had spent playing childhood games in that same venue. Not much had changed since then, except that Tom had since succeeded his father as proprietor, and a fresh coat of teal paint overtop the tope that used to color the walls. Following Tom to the flat that occupied the space above the garage, Thomas and Jimmy sat at the tiny Pembroke table in the kitchen while Tom put the kettle on.

The water boiled just as Tom was piling some mayonnaise sandwiches atop a layer of cucumber ones, which were arranged upon another salmon variety. Patiently, Pancake waited at Tom’s feet with a flopping tail and eager obedience, a performance that easily won Tom over. Munching on fish scraps that had been scattered upon the tile, Pancake contentedly huddled under his doggie mac and let the humans have their tea in peace. Tom brought the sandwiches and the teapot to the table, followed by three mismatched mugs and paper towels to catch crumbs.

“I suppose I’d best call Mathew, let him know that’s that,” Thomas said over the slurp of Jimmy sucking down his tea in one go. He pretended not to notice when Jimmy scalded his tongue and stuck it out to fan it with a comical swipe of his hand. Instead, Thomas lit a fresh cigarette and watched Pancake mop the floor with his slobbery jowls. Quietly, he contemplated the autonomy the retrieval of his own mobile had returned to him, unsure if it meant that he was to be fettered to routine again. Pushing a heavy, smoke-laced breath through his nostrils, Thomas mused, “Though more pressin’ is likely what I’m to do next. We might’ve come to an understanding, but I’m still not certain me dad and I cleared up enough to erase all the other trouble we’ve had.”  

“Don’t be daft, you noodle,” Jimmy interrupted once he’d rolled his tongue back into his mouth. “Of course you’ll come home with me and Pancake.”

The fact that Thomas had often fantasized about just such an outcome had no bearing on whether he believed it might actually happen. But to hear the words actually float out of Jimmy enchanted Thomas like rude magic. A smile broke Thomas’s lips to picture it: tea for two and lovemaking on a Yorkshire dale, while Pancake stalked clicking insects and ate snapdragons. He could sense how soppy his appearance had become, but for once, he hardly cared. In a way, he hoped Jimmy would call him out on it just so he’d have a reason to announce how bloody pleased he was. Inside his shoes, his wet toes wiggled; the rims of his ears glowed a telltale pink against raven black hair.

“Good idea. I endorse it,” said Tom, a mayo sandwich triangle in one hand, his own mobile in the other. The goofy expression he wore indicated that the person he was texting was most likely Sybil.

The clack-clack of claws scuffling upon the tile interrupted their chat. Thomas leaned back just in time to see a tiny tuxedo cat dive for Pancake’s salmon scraps, snatching up the largest piece before darting to safety underneath the table, protected by a tangle of legs and chair rungs. Pancake trundled after the interloper, attempting to mush his enormous size into the same space without much success.

Infuriated on Pancake’s behalf, Jimmy scraped his chair backwards, crunching over at the waist so he could glower at the victorious feline, who was already enjoying the spoils of her thievery. Thomas also investigated the scene, though he was much more attuned to Tom’s righteous laughter above. He arched an eyebrow at Tom as the table thumped and quaked with Pancake’s continued efforts to get at the kitten.

“You remember that little cat that used to live in the alley, right?” Tom inquired, reclining comfortably in his chair with an arm that drooped over the back. “Well, she had a kindle and here we are, overrun by the tiny devils.”

Jimmy poked up just enough for two sharp blue irises to glint from across the table. “You don’t have to sound so smug about it,” he complained, clearly unhappy that the little cat had bamboozled his best friend. He ducked low again, marked only by the fingers he kept spread upon the tabletop, and frowned at the cat. The black and white creature was grooming herself like eating the fish had flavored her very fur. By that point, Pancake had wriggled about a third of his body underneath the table, though the furniture greatly impeded his ability to move much further than that. Confident in that, the kitten padded over to Pancake and tickled him with her whiskers. Pancake snuffled and the kitten licked him with her tiny tongue.

“Oy, _traitor_ , what’re you doin’, eh?” Jimmy demanded when Pancake raked the little feline close enough to get in a whiff and a lick of his own. He seemed determined to pin the cat down in some form of a hug, though the wriggly kitten had proven to be quite a challenge to wrangle.

“S’pose the confidence was inherited,” Thomas decided as he watched the scene on elbows bent upon his knees. “Boy, did that old cat ever toy with us. What stupid children we were, yeah?”    

“Incredibly stupid,” Tom agreed as he aimed his phone’s camera at Pancake and the kitten. White brightness flooded the underside of the table as Tom’s flash went off, startling both animals. Pancake’s forepaws flew over his muzzle to shield drooping eyes, while the kitten skittered off to hide between Thomas’s feet. Tiny claws nipped at Thomas’s socks, a small lump of fur squirming underneath his trouser cuff and up his calf.

“Hey, steady on!” Thomas yelped, unable to stifle his tickled laughter. He tried to pry the kitten off, but he had difficulty getting a hand on her. Then the cat was balled up on the toe of his trainer, where she fit perfectly, and began to vibrate with feline pleasure. Much as he was loath to admit it, Thomas couldn’t bring himself to shake the kitten off.

“Looks like you’ve a new pal,” Tom observed with a catlike slyness of his own. He grinned, “You ought to take her with you. That one’s kind of a loner, and I’ve already got three others to mind.”   

“Absolutely not!” Jimmy interjected just as Thomas was smiling at the drowsy kitten and dazedly agreed: “Okay.”

When Jimmy rocketed back into an upright position, his face was beet red and hot. The clench of his jaw, which pronounced his squared cheekbones quite strongly, trembled like he wished to chuck the kitten right back into the downpour. At the same time, there was a certain softness beneath his temper that indicated how powerless he was in Thomas’s care. All it took was a cursory peek at the tenderness the kitten invoked within Thomas, the way he smiled and stroked the velvety tuft between her ears with his index finger. Any protest within Jimmy was destroyed when Thomas carefully scooped the kitten into the cup of one hand to get a better look at her, but touched noses with her instead. “She’s rather cute,” Thomas decided without realizing how loudly he’d made the declaration. Tom casually chewed on his sandwich, while Jimmy looked about ready to pop.

“Fine,” Jimmy harrumphed at long last. Folding his arms, he made a larger show of his bluster than necessary; “You can keep her – but _only_ if I get to name her, right?”

“Okay,” Thomas told the kitten in a way that echoed Jimmy’s enthusiasm for Pancake.

If Thomas had taken a moment to study Jimmy, he might have guessed what sort of label Jimmy was about to improvise. Instead, transfixed by his new pet, who was mewling between his fingers in a flurry of soft fur and little paws, he was thinking about how this ritual almost smacked of settling down, perhaps married with children. An even dopier expression affixed itself to Thomas’s face as he picked out the details of their future – how they’d live in a Welsh cottage by the sea and walk Pancake down the pier every day at dusk, right when the lights were twinkling on. Then they’d come back to the little black kitten Jimmy had baptized as –

“Waffles,” Jimmy announced gleefully. “She’ll be called Waffles – on account of she an’ Pancake got to be chums and all.”

Thomas lowered the kitten to his lap, where she slinked off his palm and into the crevice between his legs, where she proceeded to knead at his trousers. Idly, he waggled his fingers for the kitten’s amusement while he spoke to Jimmy: “Are we to have a full breakfast menagerie together?” he asked, emboldened by the idea of sharing any and everything with Jimmy.

“If you like,” Jimmy shrugged, though the flush that still dyed his skin betrayed his attempt at indifference. He shuffled in his seat, arching his neck so that it curved up into a chin turned towards the ceiling. A pout that was meant to be contrary edged into something more sentimental – only to be forcibly molded back into indifference when the mawkishness became too pronounced. The expressive struggle proved hilarious to Thomas, who did his best to stifle his amusement – without much success.  

“Correct me if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick here,” Thomas smirked, “but are you askin’ me to be your little wifey?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, big boy!” Jimmy scoffed, growing even redder by the moment. “Ain’t nothin’ little about _you_!”

Jimmy’s grandstanding only shot him full of mirth, twice what it had been before. He outright laughed, quaking with a joy that began in his belly and faded into the tips of even his tiniest nerves. “Well, I accept,” Thomas simpered, stuck somewhere between facetiousness and flattery. Then he added, “Whatever it is you’re offerin’, I’ll have owt.”

Impressed by the robustness of Thomas’s pleasure, Tom refreshed his tea and said, “My, my, you two are quite the cozy couple. I’ve never seen you like this, Thomas!”

It was Thomas’s turn to burn with embarrassment, his alabaster skin a stark rosy hue through the gray nicotine cloud that burnished the kitchen. He played it off with a long drag on his cigarette through which he let slip closed his eyelids. Breathing out slowly, smokily, he shrugged, “It’s hardly a marriage proposal, Tom. Mind out!”

“Isn’t it?” Tom nonchalantly wondered from behind another sandwich triangle. It was obvious that this rare opportunity to rib Thomas in such a fashion was one he relished.

Another bout of furious inhalations at his cigarette was Thomas’s immediate reaction. He was afraid to cast his attention in Jimmy’s direction, terrified that he’d unearth a hidden indication of how Jimmy truly felt. He’d fruitlessly professed the depth of his own affections aloud to Jimmy enough times that he’d grown accustomed to the idea that he was choking on a foolish hope. He didn’t like to imagine that Jimmy’s every little hint and insinuation had been a mere trick of his own strange desires, and that he’d fallen for someone who only loved him with the temporary fondness. Thomas had been wrong about such things a million and one times before, and he nearly expected the same out of Jimmy out of habit. No sooner had the idea touched him did he allow it to consume him. Three long drags later, he’d smoked his cigarette down to the filter and was igniting another with a hand that shook a lot less than he perceived it did.

Under the table, something heavy connected with Thomas’s ankle. Startled, he scooped Waffles against his hip and peered at the floor, where Jimmy was tapping him with the rubber toe of one trainer. “When will you figure out that I’m in love with you, dummy?” Jimmy lamented once he’d kidnapped Thomas’s focus once more. “D’ya need to hear me to say it fifteen times a day, ‘cause I will. I love you, I love you, you oblivious moron!”

Everything in Thomas slowed to a single heartbeat to hear such a thing above the din of all the stories he’d spun for himself. _Overcomplicated and stupid, like the rest of you_ , he berated himself with routine disdain. But the longer Jimmy watched Thomas through the nicotine halo he wore, the faster such negativity drained out of him.  

“I’d miss you, you know,” Jimmy told Thomas softly, speaking as if they were the only two people in the world.

A thrill tremored through Thomas to hear Jimmy’s profound admission, but he barely got to revel in it. Instead, he nearly fumbled his cigarette into his teacup when an unexpected weight on one knee startled him back to rainy Manchester. His chin hit his chest as his attention dropped to his lap, where Pancake had shoved his face in an effort to lick Waffles. His wet doggie mackintosh and drool-caked mouth soaked through Thomas’s trouser leg almost instantly, making the point of batting Pancake away moot. He slouched into his seat helplessly, cigarette angled upwards at the corner of his mouth as he puffed away and watched Pancake and Waffles play. It stimulated his earlier invention of walking arm-in-arm with Jimmy and Pancake upon a whimsical Welsh pier. The picture evolved into more explicit detail, conjuring the home they could share, the hearth by which Pancake and Waffles could nap, the little bed upon which they could love one another.  

“I know,” said Thomas, tapping his cigarette into his cold tea. He stubbed it out in a half-eaten sandwich crust so that he could more freely stroke the animals crowded around him, ignorant of how Jimmy watched him like he was the fairest creature of all.

Not that it mattered. He had all the time in the world to notice.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look out for a epilogue next week!
> 
> But thank you to everyone who's been reading this and for all the lovely support. I'm so happy you all enjoyed this story, and thanks for tuning in!


	21. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion on a Welsh pier.

 

The moon was low in the sky, an enormous disc fixed upon a lavender canvas. Its amber glow sprinkled daubs of light upon the choppy sea below, which then melted into foam upon the beach. Above the breakers, right at the end of the pier, sat Thomas and Jimmy with bare feet dangling over the edge of the boardwalk. Sand and salt gummed their legs from toe to knee as they watched the moon rise to its apex, their hands interlocked in the space between. They were supposed to meet Sybil there, but she was late and the gloaming was starting to peter out. One by one, the wires beneath the planks began to pick out bulb after bulb until the trim of every ride and booth along the pier sparkled with leccy.

“I don’t mind waitin’,” Jimmy shrugged. “I’ll stay with you even after I can’t see you anymore.” Beside him, Pancake was curled up in a lazy ball, a victim of sleep after a day of frolicking in the surf, and then suffering an unending length of petting at Jimmy’s behest. Slumped over Pancake was a giant stuffed tyrannosaurus, which Thomas had won for Jimmy after a stirring six rounds at the ring toss. However, Pancake quickly claimed the toy as his own and had been dragging it by one red, felt foot all day.

“You’ve held out this long. What’s a couple more minutes?” Thomas said, halfway through a fried Mars bar. He was covered in chocolate, but he had grown to be a lot less neurotic about such things in the last year.

Jimmy’s immediate response was a long, open-mouthed yawn that caught moonbeams and sea breeze alike. “Might not be able to drive at this rate. I’m well knackered,” he said as a row of lights exploded to life underneath the wooden deck they sat upon. A tangerine-tinted aura illuminated the backs of their calves against the lunar ocean.

Thomas shrugged, still entrenched in the treat melting in his hand. “Well, if Sybil would turn up, we could bully her into lettin’ us stay at her father’s B&B instead of drivin’ home,” he suggested between each chewy mouthful.

As he spoke, he stroked one of Jimmy’s knuckles with the hand that covered them, never tired of the gold band that now encircled Jimmy’s wedding finger. They had only just exchanged the rings during a shotgun ceremony on the beach earlier that day, which Tom had presided over and Sybil had witnessed, while Pancake reprised his role as a groomsman. If Thomas had thought that this was where he and Jimmy would end up, he might not have laughed when Jimmy had idly suggested they get hitched a month prior. It was the start of a fresh summer after the one that had transformed them, but now that it was done with, Thomas couldn’t imagine it happening any other way.

“Won’t Waffles miss you?” Jimmy smirked, flexing his fingers beneath Thomas’s. His straight nose and pert lips cut a perfect profile against the carnival of stars above. A briny breezed tussled Jimmy’s fringe and the kites hung with checkered tails and glow sticks soaring off the tip of the pier. In the distance, someone was blasting a stereo down on the beach.

“I doubt she’ll mind havin’ full run of the house for an extra day,” Thomas commented idly, far more distracted by how much he wanted to kiss Jimmy in full view of the moon. It amazed him that Jimmy was actually his, an outcome which seemed just about as probable as catching a falling comet with hands cupped at only the right moment. “Besides,” he went on, casting a sidelong glance at Pancake, who was still happily snoozing with his new plush friend; “she couldn’t be arsed about either of us. Pancake’s her man.”

“Good thing I’ve got me owns, then,” Jimmy said, smugly arching a brow.

It was a deceptively calm moment, for no sooner had Thomas fallen prey to the lull did Jimmy pounce upon his fried Mars bar with snatching fingers and conniving laughter. Collapsing under the unexpected addition of Jimmy’s weight, Thomas was helpless as Jimmy scrambled across him in pursuit of the sweet. When he finally got a hand on it, the messy dessert came apart in Jimmy’s fist, but it didn’t stop him from shoving it into his mouth before Thomas could react. He ended up with more chocolate on his cheeks than on his tongue, but Thomas had a sneaking suspicion that stealing a snack hadn’t really been Jimmy’s aim in the first place – since Jimmy was now leering up at him, pinned to the boardwalk by each wrist. The Mars bar, forgotten and mushed beyond recognition, summoned a horde of seagulls to squabble over its sugary carcass, while Thomas adhered his lips to Jimmy’s with chocolate and nougat.

“Honeymooning already, boys?” came a welcome interruption. Pancake shook the laziness from his bones the moment he heard Sybil’s voice, immediately up on all four paws and dragging his stuffed dinosaur by the tail like he meant to gift it to her. She laughed as he deposited his newest toy at her feet, clearly amused that it was nearly the same size as him. She knelt to shower him with kisses and scratches, while Jimmy grumbled the word “Traitor.”

Meanwhile, Thomas dragged himself from Jimmy, embarrassed to appear as a primary school child might, clothing in disarray and hair out of place, face covered in chocolate. Jimmy sat up with noticeably less embarrassment, though he had less shame in licking his lips clean than it was for Thomas to scrub his cheeks with mucky fingers. Riddled with laughter, Sybil was barely able to contain herself to see Thomas wearing himself in so starkly different a fashion.

“It’s like meeting again for the first time,” she grinned as Thomas futilely tried to wipe melted Mars off his face with his shirt sleeve. “I’m learning so much I never knew!”

“Blame me other half,” Thomas yelped, still quite a mess. He gave Jimmy a particularly unamused look from beneath arched eyebrows, though the chocolate dregs that refused to abate spoiled the effect.

“I didn’t do shite,” Jimmy shrugged, knowing full well he had.

“Maybe we ought to go dunk the pair of you into the sea,” Sybil suggested gleefully, though her eyes were on Pancake as he romped in circles around her. She swished her frock for him, dancing from foot to foot as she kept its swirling hem just out of Pancake’s maw. The nearby conglomeration of seagulls tittered with glee and flounced into the hubbub. They fluttered around Sybil and Pancake in a whimsical flurry which Jimmy captured with his mobile.

Chocolate forgotten, Thomas sat back on his hands and watched Jimmy watch Sybil, enamored by a strange kind of magic that bore Jimmy’s shape. It was the same spell that tingled through him that afternoon, whilst he and Jimmy strolled up and down the length of the shore. Along the way, they shared their first married dance in the surf, through which Thomas had hummed ‘Earth Angel’ into Jimmy’s ear while they stepped a mismatched merengue beat. But that had been hours ago, before the starlight had charmed something new and even more beautiful between the moon and the electrolyte in Jimmy’s eyes.

As the seagulls lost interest in Sybil and Pancake, escaping into the sky on ivory wings, Sybil’s dancing feet slowed and glided towards Thomas and Jimmy, who sat upon long shadows that anchored them the boardwalk. She delicately fell to her knees then sat on her heels just in time for Pancake to trundle up to her in search of attention. Holding the giant dog, she smiled at the other two, reminiscing aloud: “You know, as I walked over here, I saw the Pinto. It was so odd to walk by it without piling in. No need to run off and drive into the night. No more adventures and all.”

“Certainly was an adventure,” Jimmy mused in agreement. “I still think about it often.”

“Do you really?” Thomas interrupted with the urgency of the moment. Even in their most intimate moments, he had always assumed Jimmy lackadaisical and unsentimental about the whole affair. Thomas would never forget how his whole life had been turned inside out with a flick of the palm Jimmy kept cocked on the Pinto’s steering wheel. Sunk into the worn bucket seat on the passenger side, Thomas had struggled coping with his own turmoil, while Jimmy seemed to never think anything through at all.

“Sure I do,” Jimmy replied, his lips tweaked by a secret smile that held a meaning only he understood. His bare feet swung over the beach far below, his arms folded upon the lowest rung of the barrier that lined the pier as he watched the tide roll in. With his grubby cheeks and tussled hair, Jimmy looked particularly childlike. He also was the picture of Thomas’s good fortune, especially when he faced the moonlight and said to him: “I went on that trip to find m’self. I found you instead.”

“What’s that mean?” Thomas clamored. He knew he’d gone overboard in his petty jealousies before, but Jimmy was the swinging needle on his compass, pointing him towards Polaris even in black water. There were still times he couldn’t help his fear of drowning alone.

“I were lonely, Thomas,” said Jimmy, resting a cheek upon the cradle of his forearms. “So were you.”

Thomas’s cheeks singed so red, his ghostly skin lost its twilit pallor. He forced his attention out to the water, where a small boat was bobbing just beyond the breakers, a black shape upon the horizon. “Y-You’re still a cocky devil,” Thomas chittered, embarrassed to be revealed so candidly to Sybil. “You can’t have known how it’d turn out, though,” he was quick to say, fumbling sticky hands in his lap. “I might’ve been a – a lunatic or somethin’.”

A snort flared through Jimmy’s nostrils, which he attempted to stifle behind his wrist. “At least _I_ had Pancake to protect me,” he said around a smug chortle that indicated a diversion. “Sybil’s the one who should’ve reconsidered hoppin’ along with the like of us!” 

At the mention of her name, Sybil leaned into the conversation with a thoughtful observation: “Got to take a chance sometimes. Or you might never find out what’s next.” Pancake barked his faithful support.

“Besides,” Jimmy went on, his eyes still bright in the thinning light, “the moment I saw your face, I knew it were the face I loved. And that I’d were only seein’ myself when I looked at you.”

With a word, Jimmy caused every merry lightbulb on the pier to crackle to silence, leaving Thomas and him alone in a world of their own making. Instances like these left Thomas cold, terrified of the day that Jimmy would realize that Thomas’s broken brain would never get better. And yet, even in the throes of that very fear, there was still always a certain sweetness in the way Jimmy regarded him – a sweetness that illuminated Jimmy’s every flaw and edge with indescribable clarity. Jimmy wore both confidence and insecurity so well, it consoled Thomas every time.

“I’ve waited me whole life to meet you,” Jimmy said, exhaling the rising stars beneath his breath. “I’ll love you well beyond the rest of it.”

As the pier reestablished itself around them, alive with music and penny games, Thomas was struck with an indescribable poignancy in Jimmy. Inspired by the whimsical carnival and the rush of water beneath the pier, Thomas grabbed Jimmy with a fervor that startled not only the blond, but Sybil and Pancake as well. “Let’s go somewhere – anywhere at all,” Thomas suggested with an excitement that colored his irises and his cheeks. “Y’know, like that night in Bristol, when we aimed for the moon.”

“You want to go to Bristol?” Jimmy wondered incredulously, even as enthusiasm for the idea expanded within Sybil. There was no need to elaborate on the intimate night Thomas and Jimmy had shared atop the Avon Gorge; she was more thrilled by the notion of new adventure with dear friends.

“Bristol, Brighton – nowhere at all. We could have a night in, but I’d rather drive into forever with you than settlin’ for just a midnight tea,” said Thomas, who had returned to stroking the wedding band Jimmy wore. Its mate gleamed on Thomas’s finger, a beacon of grace in an existence that had once been minimal and disconnected. Now, there was a spark in the air between them.

Something clicked in Jimmy the moment Thomas made his declaration. He lit up like every boardwalk amusement had been wired through him, marked by the return of that same soft, ambiguous smile he’d worn moments before.  Jimmy scooted backwards so that he could clamber to his feet. Pancake spun in happy circles, dragging his red tyrannosaur as Sybil also got up, leaving just Thomas to join their ranks. Jimmy inclined himself over Thomas, offering a helping hand as he said, “Just don’t pinch me awake.”

The sea breeze seemed to lift Thomas up, carrying him down the pier as he chased Jimmy’s dancing figure towards the Pinto. Sybil’s laughter followed him as he went, an uplifting and joyful tune to describe the night. With a backwards step, she frolicked past Thomas, encouraging him to hurry along with a beckoning hand. To see her move with such fairy-like charm made Thomas wonder after Tom, who was probably waiting with a pint at the B&B and wondering just where everyone had got off to.

“Don’t worry about him,” she sang when Thomas voiced the concern. “We’ll text him a fabulous picture from wherever we land in the morning.”

_The morning_. Thomas could already imagine the dawn upon Jimmy’s face, an image which banished Thomas’s penchant for frowning. It would be the first sunrise of their new life together, but Thomas already knew he’d be falling in love all over again to experience it. After spending so much time alone, it pleased him to anticipate the sensation. As he crossed the promenade towards the Pinto, which Jimmy had forgotten once he’d parked it, Thomas looked up to see Jimmy waiting for him on the bonnet, his heels tilted upon the front bumper as he waved at Thomas from beneath a streetlamp. Pancake and Sybil were nearly there, a snapshot of the dream that had filtered into his reality. He’d never seen anything so wonderful in his life.

And it had only just begun.

 

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END

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's all she wrote. Thank you so much to everyone who stuck with this story! I'm so happy you guys ended up liking Pancake and company so much. See you in the next one!


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